Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a film for today, but it was written seven years ago. “We had already set the ball rolling for Seven Psychopaths to be made next,” writer-director Martin McDonagh told me, “but it could equally have been this.”

"This" being McDonagh’s strongest project to-date, Three Billboards tells the story of pained mother Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) challenging the local (see: incompetent) police force for justice in the brutal rape and murder of her daughter. Indeed, Hayes does what the title suggests, renting out billboards on the outskirts of town that chastise Police Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) for not solving the crime.

There’s an emotional center to Three Billboards that fans of McDonagh may be surprised by. While it certainly retains the quick-witted profanity of In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, it’s deeply invested in the people of Ebbing, Missouri. A senseless crime has rattled the previously idyllic community. Blood is on their hands, and Mildred won’t let ‘em forget it. I spoke to McDonagh about the anger at the heart of his new film and I had him explain how the project came together. Here's what he had to say.

VICE: At heart, you're a writer. When do you know you have something worth filming?
Martin McDonagh: Pretty much as soon as you finish the script, honestly, you know if it's good or a load of shit. If it’s a load of shit you throw it away, and if it's good you wait another two or three years and then try and get it financed. I’ve always tried to be honest with myself as a writer. There are plays I’ve written that just didn’t work on the page, so they’ll never see the light of day. But I’ve always tried to write a few things and have them stockpiled to choose what the next one will be. So Billboards was ready the same time that Seven Psychopaths was ready as a script. We had already set the ball rolling for Seven Psychopaths to be made next, but it could equally have been this. I’m glad it wasn’t, because I think there were things I still needed to learn on Seven Psychopaths that I was able to utilize with this. I think that’s why it’s a better film, in my eyes.

What did you need to learn?
To be a bit more empathetic with the characters, because I think that’s what In Bruges had and what Seven Psychopaths didn’t. Just to jump in there and see the world through their eyes, and not be so meta or omniscient. Not be as much of a puppeteer as a director, but to fight it out with your characters, was the most important thing.

Actor Sam Rockwell and director/writer Martin McDonagh on the set of THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI. Photo by Merrick Morton. © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

Your characters in Three Billboards are especially angry people.
I think anger was the starting point. And being true to anger and not being necessarily judgmental, because I think anger can be a good thing if it’s utilized in the right way. You just can’t dwell in that place of rage for the entire film.

Where did the anger come from for you?
Thinking about a crime of that nature, and how that seems to happen too often. What would you do, personally, if you were affected by something so close to home? That was the kind of germination of the story for Mildred: to just be truthful to that rage and that pain, especially when it’s aimed at the ineptitude of a bunch of people who aren’t, in her eyes, doing enough to help. I think the interesting thing about the story is that it’s two people going to war with each other: Frances and Woody’s characters, who are both in the right, in a lot of ways. Woody’s character is trying, and he’s not a bad man—it’s a crime that can’t be solved—and she’s in the right for demanding more. But it’s not just a film that’s about anger, it’s about change and hope, hopefully, too. Not in an easy-to-digest, sentimental, or patronizing way, but it’s about the hope that’s born out of being truthful to real people.

Director/Writer Martin McDonagh and Frances McDormand on the set of THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI. Photo by Merrick Morton. © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

“Easy-to-digest, sentimental, or patronizing” are not characteristics people have used to describe your movies.
(Laughs) I try to avoid sentiment, especially when you’re dealing with working-class characters as we are in this. That’s my background, so it always irks me when characters with that background are treated in a sentimental, patronizing, or unintelligent way.

You were raised in South London. Do you have any early memories of rage that you remember from childhood?
It was later than that. Probably when I was about to leave school and feeling that I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I didn’t want to work in a shitty job that I hated for a boss that I wanted dead. I always hoped for something a bit more artistic, but there didn’t seem like there were any avenues open for me.

You felt filmmaking was out of reach?
Completely, yeah. Even at that stage, traveling on vacation to America was out of reach. I just didn’t have the money to contemplate that, let alone going to film school. It just seemed like a completely different world, you know?

(From L-R) Frances McDormand, actor Peter Dinklage and director/writer Martin McDonagh on the set of THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI. Photo by Merrick Morton. © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

I imagine it propelled you forward, in a way.
I think so, and similarly with the theater, it was so beyond me. Mostly because it’s so boring and stupid, when I started getting into it, it was to explode what I disliked about theater—which was everything. I disliked everything about theater. I couldn’t even imagine making one film, but gradually… I mean, the first one came out pretty good, but that was born out of years of working in theater and getting to know and like actors and their process. I had a grounding in what makes a good film, and that’s good acting.

You think that’s what makes a good film?
I think unless you’ve got that, films won’t live or connect or inspire. For instance, my favorite Kubrick films would be the ones where the actors get time to do their thing, as opposed to 2001 or something. I’d always go toward Paths of Glory or The Killing rather than that. I’m not the kind of director who could (or would even want) to get a performance out of a bad actor, so I just surround myself with good actors and let them take care of that shit.

Actor Sam Rockwell and actress Frances McDormand on the set of THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI. Photo by Merrick Morton. © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

Three Billboards hones in the ineptitude of the police. Do you think being raised away from America allows you to comment on the country more easily?
I almost hope not. I almost hope the movie isn’t an outsider’s comment on America. I always try to see the connections between us all and try to ignore nationalities or the things that divide us. I wanted this to feel like an American movie—to be truthful to this town and these characters in small-town America. I didn’t want it to be an outsider’s take on it. But I’m too close to say that at the moment. I’m hoping, from the reactions to it by Americans, no one’s taken it as anything other than an American movie.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is in theaters now.

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Empaths claim to be able to feel the emotional, mental or physical state of another person, an animal or the collective emotions of planet earth and everyone on it. So if you feel the earth's pain – or have had a panic attack because someone near you was anxious – you might be an empath too.

In scientific circles, the concept of empaths is dismissed as paranormal nonsense, but in an age of unrest, narcissism and social media anxiety, as we all search for a cure to our woes, new age therapies are booming, with people willing to look past what science has to say on the matter.

In our new documentary Are You an Empath? host Hannah Ewens visits a community of empaths in New York led by David Sauvage – who charges clients up to 200 dollars per hour – to uncover the mysteries behind this phenomenon and find out if she's an empath herself, or if she’s just full of shit.

@hannahrosewens / @avantgrant

This article originally appeared on thump

Playa del Carmen is a Mexican beach city 45 minutes outside of Cancún. Over the last decade, thanks largely to the swarms of tourists flocking to its annual BPM Festival, it's become an international party hub for dance music diehards – and an under-the-radar getaway for people who don't want to be found.

My brush with the darker side of Playa began in October of 2013, when I was working as a salesperson and concierge for a company that rents luxury villas to vacationers sometimes willing to pay upwards of $3,000 (£2,275) per night. My duties included booking deals, answering questions and ensuring our guests had everything they needed during their stay. I landed the gig when my own family rented a villa there; after a few shots of tequila and the bitter realisation that I had no desire to return to school anytime soon, I asked the owner of the company if he needed any help. Turns out he did, and a month-and-a-half later I was on a one-way flight from my hometown of Los Angeles to Mexico.

Playa del Carmen is a small town, and during my three months there I rubbed shoulders with all kinds of characters from every corner of the world: expats; nomads; international club kids; even self-admitted criminals hiding from the Feds. Still, it was Micha's* story that I'll never forget, because it was my first (and probably last) glimpse into the elusive and glamorous world of those in the upper echelons of the drug trade. In retrospect, I actually got to see more than a glimpse – for a few surreal weeks, I was a character in Micha's world, fully immersed in the lifestyle of an international drug kingpin.

I met Micha in January of 2014, when he rented a five-bedroom villa on the beach from us. He was 6'2" and clean-cut, harbouring a taste for fitted clothing, designer shoes and watches that cost close to a teacher's starting salary. Perhaps part of his charm to me was that he seemed like the embodiment of traditional masculinity, with the chiselled physique of a UFC fighter, the commanding presence of a Godfather-style mafioso, and a strong jaw that would clench whenever he was mad or lost in thought. After some initial small talk, I learned he was from Manitoba, Canada, in his early-thirties, and of Eastern European descent.

Micha arrived with his friend Tim, whose trip to Mexico was the first time he'd left Canada after spending his entire young adulthood in prison for attempted murder. Tim was 29, but had the energy of a teenager. It's was as if his development ceased when he entered prison.

The relationship between Micha and me was unconventional from the start. Before I had the chance to give him and Tim a tour of their villa and my usual concierge spiel, Micha took a Ziploc bag out of his pants loaded with what he told me were 75 pressed ecstasy pills and a sheet of acid. After I got over my initial shock, the adrenaline junkie in me kicked in. Micha's brazenness was a welcome change from all the bougie rich people and mums gone wild I'd been dealing with all season.

"Do you want any?"

"Sure."

He gave me five ecstasy pills.

WATCH: Big Night Out – Ibiza

Wondering why the hell anyone would casually carry around so many drugs, I asked the guys what they did for work. Micha mindlessly pulled out three cell phones and told me he was "in construction". I continued to press him, asking, "You know this villa is for up to ten people. Is it just the two of you?" Micha said he was flying in a friend and some girls from Colombia.

Sure enough, the next day two of the most gorgeous women I'd seen in my life strolled in through the door and introduced themselves as Lorena and Mari. The girls looked like vixens straight out a music video, with Sofía Vergara faces and Nicki Minaj bodies. They were dressed in tiny T-shirts and bikinis, with skin-tight jeans, long acrylic nails and plenty of jewellery. Somewhat mysteriously, I was told they were "being paid to party for the week".

The girls were kind to me. The three of us bonded over our mutual love for electronic music and travel, and Lorena even showed me videos of her DJing at parties in her hometown of Cali, Colombia. Our interaction beyond this, however, was limited, as the girls spent a majority of their time taking selfies and snorting a strange powder straight from the bag. "Ningunas personas en Colombia les gustan cocaine" – "No one in Colombia likes cocaine" – Mari told me in Spanish. They told me it was 2C-B, a designer drug similar to MDMA.

A day after the women arrived, Micah's buddy Ivan showed up – also from Cali, Colombia. While emptying his luggage in the common area, Ivan pulled out more designer drugs and a couple grand in $100 bills, casually informing me that the money was grade-A counterfeits. He then told us that he was held up at the airport in Cancún because of his record showing a traffic warrant in Miami.

According to Micha, he met Ivan several years ago in Guadalajara during one of his frequent trips to Mexico, and they've been friends ever since. Now, Ivan was essentially Micha's right-hand-man whenever they were in Mexico; his primary duties included being a translator between Micha and his harem of Latinas, driving everyone around and carefully coordinating nights out on the town.

Micha took a liking to me – perhaps because I was the only female he could communicate with in English. Over the course of a few nights he took us all out partying at clubs like Mamita's, Kool Beach Club, Canibal Royale and La Santanera. It was just around the time before BPM Festival, so the DJs played mostly underground house and techno. Micha preferred a more Vegas vibe, but stuck around as long as there were pretty girls and plenty of champagne.

Bottles of Dom Pérignon – never Moët

Our routine usually went something like this: we'd show up at the club, pay for a table and immediately be treated like royalty. The servers would bring Moët, but Micha wouldn't be satisfied, so they'd come back with Dom Pérignon. The tab would run to at least $10,000. Always paid in cash. Every night also involved copious amounts of drug use, astronomically expensive meals out and plenty of Colombian-Canadian sex. It was the type of grade-A reckless hedonism that movies like Spring Breakers are made of, and truthfully, I enjoyed every second of it.

A few days before his check-out date, Micha decided he wanted to make an impromptu trip to Guadalajara to visit friends. Meanwhile, the women and Ivan flew back to Colombia, leaving me alone with Micha and Tim. We immediately ran into a problem: the guys couldn't pay for flight tickets with their credit cards because they wanted to avoid leaving an electronic paper trail. After all the time we'd spent together – with Micha essentially letting me tag along on his all-expenses-paid vacation – I felt inclined to help. At this point, I knew that Micha was probably not the owner of a run-of-the-mill construction company, but at this point I enjoyed their company so much that I chose to ignore my growing suspicions.

I offered to put the tickets on my card and have the guys pay me back in cash. They politely declined. Instead, Micha gave me 1,000 pesos (approximately $100) to drive to Cancún International Airport and buy two tickets to Guadalajara for him and Tim, in cash.

After Mexico, Micha flew back to Canada and I went home to LA. For the next six months, we kept in touch via WhatsApp. It felt exciting to be friends with an elusive bad boy who orbited on a level far above the small-time dealers I'd fucked with in Playa and LA. I still wasn't even sure what he did exactly, but would soon find out.

Micha roaming the ruins of Playa

In August of 2014, Micha announced that he was coming to LA for a month-long vacation, and was thinking about investing in the El Pollo Loco restaurant chain after hearing from friends how good their Mexican-style grilled chicken is. He told me that he might want to open one back in Manitoba.

He offered me $150 a day, plus free shopping trips and meals, if I agreed to be his driver during his visit. I didn't have a job at the time, so this sounded like a sweet deal. Plus, working for Micha meant we'd get to hang out all the time, and that's really all I wanted. I'd always had a thing for bad boys, Micha was handsome and treated me well. Based on our time together in Mexico, I knew hanging out with him in LA was guaranteed fun. Sure, he was probably involved in some shady industry, but my infatuation with him completely clouded my better judgement. I told myself: no one's perfect, right?

The first couple of days we spent together in LA were great. I took him to El Pollo Loco a few times and he loved it. We went to the beach and hung out in Hollywood and Santa Monica. We stopped by Fred Segal's and he bought me jewellery, pulling out a thick wad of cash to pay for it. Like our time in Mexico, everything was always paid for in cash to avoid a paper trail.

Then, one afternoon, he suddenly disappeared. We'd made plans to go to the beach in Malibu, but I didn't hear from him all day. He'd mentioned the night before that he was planning to meet friends at some hotspots, so I assumed he'd had a wild night partying at Playhouse or Greystone Manor in Hollywood, both clubs he expressed interest in visiting. I didn't think much of it.

Later that night, I received a barrage of panicked texts and phone calls from him, asking me to meet him down the street from his apartment, in the parking lot of a strip mall. On the phone he still sounded like the calm, collected Micha I knew, yet I could sense in his voice that something was very wrong.

When I arrived, he hopped into the passenger seat. "Just drive," he said. No explanation. He leaned the seat all the way back, making sure his head wasn't visible from outside the car's window. He periodically looked over his shoulder. I was confused, but secretly liked the thrill. It felt like we were living in a Hollywood blockbuster.

Finally, when we were at least ten miles away from his place, Micha sat up. I demanded to know what was going on, and he told me that, the previous night, a swarm of local police, FBI and DEA raided his apartment and seized $300,000 (3227,445) in cash. They'd been watching him the entire time he was in LA and saw him interact with a group of "shady men in vaquero hats". This was the only reasoning he gave me for the raid, but it was all I needed to know to tell what was really going on.

Micha enjoying El Pollo Loco

Micha told me he was thrown in jail for the night, but paid someone to pay his bond so he could be released in the morning, just hours before I picked him up. This explained why he'd gone incommunicado with me for a while.

Next, he asked me to drive him to his lawyer's office so he could figure out how to get back to Canada immediately. But, at this point, I was starting to freak out as the gravity of the situation sunk in.

"If you want me to drive you anywhere, you have to tell me what the fuck you really do," I demanded, pleading that my safety was at stake.

"Give me your phone," he said, staring at me intensely with his piercing blue eyes.

I handed it over. He turned it off and kept it in his pocket.

"I move Molly and H," he said nonchalantly.

"Oh, OK," I stuttered, shocked that he'd finally admitted to it.

"I'll fucking kill you if you tell anyone," he laughed. I knew in my heart that there was some truth to this.

Strangely, after his "confession", I felt at ease knowing I wasn't crazy, and that Micha wasn't some wild construction tycoon with bad financials. He assured me that I would be safe, and strangely, I still trusted him.

I drove him to his lawyer's, rationalising to myself that I wasn't doing anything illegal, and I could always plead ignorance. The attorney's office was in a seedy part of Van Nuys; I assumed he also represented some of the big-time drug gangs, like the Van Nuys Boys or the Pacoima Piru Bloods, known in those parts of LA. We sat in the waiting room and out came a thin man with a flashy watch and a pinstripe suit. Micha went into a room with him, and when he came out, he had good news: his attorney knew how to get him home to Canada. Micha would just have to pay him $35,000 (£26,535) – presumably for more flashy watches and pinstripe suits.

After we left the lawyer's office, Micha made a couple of phone calls on one of his burner phones, arranging for two girls from Manitoba to meet him in LA the next day with more burner phones and cash.

In a moment of clarity, even my naïve, thrill-seeking 22-year-old self anticipated the murky waters ahead should I continue to associate myself with Micha. So after I dropped him off, I called my dad from my car and asked for advice. Even though he's always practiced a sort of laissez-faire version of parenting, my dad was genuinely concerned for my safety when I told him what was happening. He instructed me to immediately delete Micha's number unless I wanted a file on me and law enforcement trailing my whereabouts – or worse.

The following day, I texted Micha, letting him know that I was headed out of town for a while. I lied and told him I was thinking about moving back to Mexico and might be difficult to contact. He replied telling me to have fun, keep in touch and that maybe we'll see each other in Mexico again. Then, I reluctantly deleted his numbers from my phone and eventually changed my own.

That friendly goodbye was the last thing I ever heard from Micha. To this day, I still think about him from time to time. Sometimes, I even look him up on American and Canadian prison inmate locators, hoping to dig up a trace of him somewhere. But I've got nothing. In fact, I still don't even know that Micha was his real name.

*All names have been changed

In 2017, fishing remains one of most—if not the most—dangerous job in this country. Between 1999 and August 2015, 55 people died on Canadian fishing vessels simply because they fell overboard, according to the Transportation Safety Board. Overall, more than 200 fishermen have died in Canada since 1999. A recent Globe and Mail investigation showed that fishing vessel deckhands have a higher workplace fatality rate than roofers, farmers, pilots, and—by a wide margin—cops. In all, fishing has the highest fatality rate of any sector in Canada. Storms, equipment failures, and even stingrays are among the many hazards fishermen face. Then there’s the everyday work, including setting longlines with hundreds of sharp hooks, hauling heavy lobster traps, and gutting swordfish, sharks, and tuna. Yet for many fishermen, the potential pay outweighs the hazards. Statistics Canada says the average pay for a fisherman is about $1,000 a week. But fishermen will tell you that a crew member working year-round for a skilled captain can make $75,000 to $120,000—serious money in many of the economically depressed fishing towns on the East Coast. Even six months on a lobster boat can net a deckhand $50,000 to $90,000 depending on market prices. Fishing is a rarity in that you can make six figures without a high school diploma. Others simply love the thrill of fishing, or see it as their only job option. Regardless of what pulls a fisherman to sea, hazards are always lurking, so we talked to three East Coast captains about their most harrowing experiences at sea.

Richard Gillett Homeport:
Twillingate, Nfld.

Richard Gillett | Photo courtesy of author.

Richard Gillett has lost three fishing boats. Two sunk; one was a “total destructive loss.” The first sinking was the most harrowing, the 46-year-old says in an interview by phone, while mackerel fishing off the northeast coast of Newfoundland.

Gillett was 25 and aboard his 34-footer, Sea Breeze, with a crew of three. The men were off the coast of Labrador, with a load of seals aboard, caught in a fierce storm: hurricane-force winds of 73 knots (135 km/h) and waves of 12-14 metres. Plus, chunks of ice—some as large as buildings and half city blocks—surrounded the boat. “We figured we could ride it out in the ice floe,” he recalls. “Unfortunately we couldn’t.”

At 5:30 AM, Gillett lost his steering. “We couldn’t turn from the big chunks of ice and one of them came and hit on the port side and literally tossed the boat over on its starboard side.”

Gillett watched water come up the windows as he issued a mayday.

The ice busted a hole in the wooden boat, cracking planks and ribs and forcing the crew to abandon ship. They loaded supplies in a small auxiliary boat and headed onto the ice.

Fortunately, a 250-foot shrimping boat appeared out of the snow and ice. But the scariest part remained: being in the auxiliary boat, 20 metres in the air, as it was hoisted by crane aboard the shrimper. As the shrimper rolled in the heavy seas, the men swung precariously in the lifeboat—one second out over the water; the next smashing into the shrimper. “I told the guys: ‘Bye, when she gets alongside that rail, get out of this boat as fast as you can.’” Gillett looked down to see Sea Breeze half sunk in the ice floe.

“If we tried to get in [to shore] with that much wind and that big of swells… I wouldn’t be talking to you now,” he says.

Fifteen minutes into our interview, Gillett interrupts me. “I’m a bit distracted here. Can I call you back?” he says.

Sure, I say.

“I’ll give you a call when I get a minute. I’m very close to the rocks here now,” he adds in a hurried voice. “I don’t want to have a fourth story for ya.”

He laughs hard and hangs up.

Nathan King
Homeport: Yarmouth, N.S.

Nathan King | Image courtesy of author.

The first day of lobster season is known as Dumping Day. In southwest Nova Scotia, Dumping Day occurs on the last Monday in November. Boats head from the wharves, most loaded high with 375 traps to be “dumped” in the water.

On Dumping Day 2015, Nathan King was crewing for his father, Richard. King and a new crewman, Wayne Atwood, were putting the first line of 20 traps in the water when King noticed the starboard (right side) rail, which helps support the stack of traps, was loose. He and Atwood were standing atop the mound of stacked traps when the rail suddenly broke. King and Atwood toppled into the water, along with 75 heavy traps, anchors, buoys, and a tangle of rope linking the traps together. Falling, about to hit the six-degree water, King thought: “Yep, this is going to be cold.”

Underwater, there was a tangle of rope around his feet. He grabbed a knife strapped to his boot and started cutting. “You couldn’t see anything. It was just all bubbles. Everything was happening fast,” King, 24, recalls. When his lifejacket inflated, he floated to the surface. He was amongst a mess of gear. Shocked by the cold water, King couldn’t breath. But he recalled his lifeguard and marine first aid training. “I took 20-30 seconds to chill.” Then he helped Atwood, who was screaming: “We’re gonna die! We’re gonna drown!”

King and Atwood clung to the boat, while trying to avoid gear still falling from the deck. The men struggled in the cold water for more than a half hour before they were finally hauled aboard. King stripped, put on dry clothes, and started cutting away the mess of gear hanging from the boat. Atwood, meanwhile, was in worse shape. Two search and rescue technicians were lowered from a helicopter to retrieve Atwood and rush him to hospital. Both men were unhurt, but for King the season was largely ruined. Atwood and a fourth crewman quit, and King and his father struggled to get a fraction of their traps in the water. (Most of the gear was unrecoverable—a tangled ball on the ocean floor.) “It was bad luck,” King concludes, “but the main thing is nobody actually got hurt.”

Chrisjon Stoddard
Homeport: Woods Harbour, N.S.

As Chrisjon Stoddard was lying on deck, in excruciating pain, he wondered: “Is this going to kill me? Will I lose my leg?”

In the summer of 1996, Stoddard, then 16, was crewing for his father—Sandy—more than 500 kilometres off the coast. They were longlining for tuna, but many of the incoming hooks had snagged black stingrays.

Stoddard was tending the line when another stingray appeared. He carefully removed the hook and was about to toss the ray overboard when someone on deck hollered: “Swordfish!” Stoddard turned just briefly and the ray struck with its razor-sharp barb.

“I had it too close to my leg and he stuck me right through the inner thigh of my right leg. He shot me full of his poison and my legs went numb, and the burning and the pain started. I couldn’t feel my legs,” he recalls.

He fell to the deck, with blood oozing from his leg: “It got me! It got me!”

Stoddard wondered if he would die, but the intense pain—“100 times stronger than a bee sting”—helped distract him.

Stoddard’s father, Sandy, was patched through to a doctor. “If he’s still breathing, the worst has passed,” the doctor told Sandy. Sandy, not wanting to cut the trip short, decided to stay at sea. Stoddard rested as a bruise formed up the entire backside of his right leg. “I can still touch places on my calf muscle and feel the tingling up the back of my leg because of the nerve damage,” he says.

Now 37 and the captain of his own boat, Stoddard prefers to simply cut stingrays loose, instead of bringing them on board. To show new crewmen the threat rays pose, he sometimes pulls a barb from a ray and uses the barb to slice the ray's wings off.

“You slice them off just like slicing butter to put on your potatoes,” he says, admitting it’s a cruel way to prove a point. “It’s to show a real respect for what they can do.”

Follow Quentin on Twitter.

Britain’s newspapers have been dedicating entire pull-out sections to sexual assault – horror splashes of Weinstein, Spacey and Westminster. At first, we read it incredulously. Now, while still shocking, these stories are becoming commonplace. The other day, in among all the accusations, I saw the name of someone I knew. She had talked about a sexual assault that had happened to her in a post online and had named the man who was the perpetrator.

I emailed the woman, and explained that I was curious about why she did it. She told me that she thought it would see him struck off work and publicly admonished. She said that, since she posted, his employer had told her that he would be suspended until they could investigate her claim further, which they could only do if she went to the police. She had no plans to do that, she said. She would only lose the case and then he would be reinstated. What would be the point?

Over the last month, there have been thousands of women, (mostly queer) men and non-binary people who have decided to share their own experiences of harassment and assault under the now familiar hashtag, #metoo. Some tell a specific story of a sexual assault, some name the perpetrator, some don’t go into detail because it’s too painful to recount, or it’s happened too many times to detail just one instance.

This outpouring online has had huge real-world repercussions. Yvonne Traynor, CEO of South London Rape Crisis, told me they’ve had a 30 percent rise in calls about rape and sexual assault since #metoo went viral, and therapy referral rates have also gone up. "This is always the case when sexual violence is reported in the media," Yvonne explained, "because it triggers memories for women and girls who have tried to cope with a trauma by pushing it to the recesses of their memory or through other forms of coping; self harm, alcohol and drug abuse, or exercise and keeping busy at work."

Beyond being a major show of solidarity and more people seeking help, the past month has been a political demonstration of how endemic gender-based sexual violence really is. However, while Yvonne agrees that there has been what she calls "a small shift in the public believing women are being harassed and raped", she worries that the shift is only happening right now because huge numbers of women are coming out and saying the same thing. "If it was only one woman saying she had been assaulted by a film producer or politician, it may be a different story," she says. "Juries convicting perpetrators are a gauge of public opinion, and so far we have not seen a spike in jurors finding perpetrators guilty."

Men who are accused online are losing their jobs and being exorcised from their industries, but they are not, currently, being arrested. Harvey Weinstein has lost his family and his job, but at the time of writing, the police investigating him in the UK and US are yet to charge him for crimes related to any of the 100 or more allegations that have been made thus far. Louis CK has had his film premiere cancelled and his stand-up shows removed from Netflix, but no charges are likely to be brought against him. Ed Westwick, the Gossip Girl star, has been accused by two different people of rape and is yet to be arrested (he denies both accounts and claims to be "co-operating with authorities"). Several Westminster MPs have now been sacked or suspended, including Welsh Labour MP Carl Sargeant, who was found dead before claims against him could be properly investigated. Two British journalists, Rupert Myers and Sam Kriss, were accused of harassment online, and the latter has been told by several publications that he can no longer contribute (Kriss had previously been a freelance contributor to VICE.com). The list goes on.

"In court you may be cross-examined by a barrister who is calling you a liar and questioning your motives for going to the police in the first place, like wanting attention... It’s complete rubbish, but sometimes enough to put doubt in the minds of jurors."

We are experiencing a moment where online allegations and social justice seem to be superseding criminal justice as the most expeditious means of punishing alleged perpetrators of sexual harassment and rape. This is concerning, not only because the accused are not given a fair trial, but because it suggests people making the allegations have lost faith in the legal system.

When I emailed Yvonne at Rape Crisis about why women are increasingly posting about attacks, she pointed to the difficulties people face when reporting these types of crimes to the police. "There are feelings of shame, blame, fear of being disbelieved, having to talk in detail about every moment, what was said, what was thought," she explains. "Then there’s possibly having to go to court and be cross-examined by a barrister who is calling you a liar and questioning your motives for going to the police in the first place, like wanting attention, wanting to punish the perpetrator or embarrassment at having sex with someone and regretting it."

Yvonne says she has heard it all: "It’s complete rubbish, but sometimes enough to put doubt in the minds of jurors."

READ:

Florence* is a journalist from the UK. She was raped when she was 17, although she didn’t quite understand this at the time. It happened when a boy she had been kissing earlier in the night entered the room she was sleeping in uninvited and forced himself upon her, despite her protesting "no". She didn’t go to the police, but three years later, more aware of rules around consent, Florence decided to post about her experience online, without naming the attacker.

"I’d read an article about rape and it showed me that was exactly what had happened to me, this horrible experience I’d found uncomfortable or traumatic at the time, but had been unable to define as rape because it was so normalised," she says. The article reignited the feelings of powerlessness she had experienced when the rape happened. She wanted to regain control by telling her story. "I felt like I was doing something constructive with the experience," she tells me now.

In 2014, three years before #metoo, not a lot of young, British women had gone public with stories about rape. Florence found a lot of press were interested in her story. She began campaigning about the issue and doing interviews, but she struggled to get her message across: "I wanted to talk about broader issues like rape being a faceless crime, the lack of education about it, or how it’s often someone that you know, but on TV and radio interviews they would just ask me about the event, making me go through the trauma again, or just cut the interview down to that part." There was a fascination with the crime, not the context, and her story was often manipulated. "It took on a life of its own – you don’t have control over that. People will interpret in ways that you don’t expect."

The post, still online, has followed her in her professional life too. "If you google my name it’s the only thing that really comes up about me. For a while I kept getting calls from people asking for interviews, and it was never about my work, it was always about the time I was raped." Florence didn’t want her real name to be used in this piece because she wants to move on from that period.

Florence never went to the police about her attack because she didn’t realise at the time that she could. Later, she decided not to go to the police because, in her words: "I don’t think he’s a bad person, he was just super uneducated about consent and that was the whole point of why I decided to write online. Maybe that’s warped guilt. It’s a difficult thing about being a survivor. I’ve spoken to people since who have managed to get their rapist convicted and feel guilty about putting them in prison. I did feel, with this, it wouldn’t help things."

Florence didn’t name her rapist in the blog post for similar reasons, although people she knew did figure out who it was. "That doesn’t mean he lost any friends, by the way. I think he lost a bit of sleep over it, but that’s about it.

Approximately 85,000 women and 12,000 men are raped in England and Wales alone every year, while around half a million adults are sexually assaulted. According to Rape Crisis, only about 15 percent of those who experience sexual violence choose to report it to the police, and only 5.7 percent of reported rape cases end in a conviction for the perpetrator, making conviction rates for rape significantly lower than other crimes.

London-based defence lawyer Sam Yazigi can see the logic behind posting online when the legal system looks this way. "The test for the Crown Prosecution Service to proceed with a case is whether there’s a realistic prospect of conviction," he explains. "A case where there wouldn’t be one is if a person made an allegation that they were raped but they didn’t go to [a sexual assault centre] Haven, or see a doctor, or contact anyone – including the defendant – about it. There’s no ripped clothing, no DNA, CCTV, no witness, just that person’s word against the defendant’s. The CPS will look at the evidence, and as genuine as that person is being they might just say, 'There’s nothing we can cling onto here except for word,' and so the complainant is told, 'We’re not going to take it further.' They feel frustrated, and they post something online."

However, while Yazigi says he can understand the frustration, he suggests the stereotype of a failed system may persist too heavily. He assures me that, in Britain, things have got better for complainants in sexual offence cases. It used to be that you would have a pretrial in a Magistrate’s Court, without a jury present, in which defence lawyers could scare accusers out of taking things further by bringing up the things Yvonne mentioned – "you’re a slag, you wanted it, you planned it all along", offers Yazigi, as examples. "It was a long time coming, but there’s now been a shift to give more power to victims. There’s no pretrial and it’s an automatic right for the complainant to say if they don’t want to see the defendant, and a curtain is drawn across the court. There has been a significant increase over the last few years in sentences given out by the courts for sexual offences, too. This is down to the Sentencing Council having revisited their guidance for these types of offences. I would say upwards of 30 percent increased length of sentences."

Still, longer sentences aren’t ample compensation for low rates of conviction, and women like the one I mentioned at the beginning of this article are wary that going to the police simply means more trauma with no guarantee of justice. Yazigi explains that while posting online can be an alternative to going to the police – "It is your right to decide if you want to involve the police in something" – posting online can result in legal action.

Firstly, it makes the person who wrote the post potentially susceptible to a libel claim. "If someone was to make a claim against the person writing the post as slander, libel, defamation, whatever, then civil action could be taken," says Yazigi. This is what has just happened to former Crystal Castles musician Alice Glass, who is being sued for defamation over recent rape and abuse claims she made against her ex-bandmate, Ethan Kath. Defamation law is an important protection against the inevitable problem of false accusations made online, but this also means that, when a defamation case does occur, a common defence for the person who posted online or talked to the press is that the allegation is true. Interestingly, another woman who recently named her rapist online told me that she only felt comfortable doing it because she knows, and he knows, that she has evidence against him, meaning he would be unlikely to sue.

Secondly, and critically, Yazigi warns anyone thinking of naming their alleged rapist in the public realm that the decision could be brought up in court at a later date. Even if the person writing the post remains anonymous while naming the alleged perpetrator, if "someone has said things on the internet that bring the allegations against the defendant into question, it would be relevant to be brought in front of a jury", he explains.

When I ask him posting an allegation online can ever be used to discredit a complainant, he responds: "Absolutely. Being on the defence side, that’s something we look into regularly. I would tell anyone thinking of posting online that it’s a bad idea because these things can be taken out of context. If the defence gets their hands on social media or press, it can be used against the witness or victim to say, 'Look, you’re only doing this for publicity.'" Yazigi tells me he has worked on rape cases where online posts have been brought up by both the prosecution and the defence. Ultimately, it could skew your criminal case.

"Everything you say, everything you post online, everything in your past, it feels like fuel when the police don’t care."

"What’s kind of darkly interesting about my whole experience is that I thought writing about it would give me some kind of power or retribution," says Florence. "I guess I thought it would stop it from ever happening again, to me personally and to others, more broadly."

Florence was raped again, two years after she wrote the post. "That time, I did take it to the police and it didn’t go anywhere. It was a shit show." When I ask her if she was worried about the first allegation online discrediting her when she went to the police about the second, she replies that it "definitely" did. "Even if I'd had sex with a thousand people it shouldn’t change the fact that I was just raped by four men," she says. "But everything you say, everything you post online, everything in your past, it feels like fuel when the police don’t care."

I ask her whether she wishes now that she’d posted anonymously: "No, I don’t have any regrets on that front. I had a lot of messages of solidarity and it got a conversation going – I think it woke some people up to the idea that rape doesn’t always happen in a dark alley. Hopefully speaking openly about it pushed people to doublethink."

Meanwhile, Florence’s rapists have faced few consequences. "I don’t think my article and the second case where I went to the police has stopped the men who did it to me – I think they’re still out there, maybe thinking they didn’t rape me," she reflects. I can’t help but wonder if things would have been different had she named these men in the press, and when I put this to her she's silent for a long time, but eventually says: "I really don’t know. I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I’ve been there, and I’ve tried the legal process and I know that most of the time it doesn’t work, but I’m still not sure that naming people is the answer." I tell her what Yazigi had said at the end of our call – that while a post online might trigger an emotional reaction in readers, that is not and cannot be how jurors look at a rape case. She agrees. There is a disconnect, and it’s the right to a fair trial.

In court, there are measures in place to protect your right to a fair trial. "Jury members are asked before the trial starts if they know anything about the case or individuals who are involved in the case or locations," Yazigi explains. "This is done in order to have a jury that is independent. Any individual who has knowledge of the case would normally not be included in that particular trial." Even in cases like Weinstein's, the judge would remind the jury to base their decision on what they hear in the courtroom, says Yazigi – and of course, to lie to a court is a crime itself, perjury. Whereas, online, the whole idea that someone should be "innocent until proven guilty" goes out the window: the named accused often find their jobs lost, relationships destroyed and reputations tarnished quicker than they can pen a statement defending themselves, or sue for defamation. In that sense, the internet is like the Wild West of justice.

If we are seeing a shift to action taken outside the criminal justice system, it’s important to consider the judgments we make outside of the courtroom and how we go about informing them. Do survivors know their rights before they post online? Have they weighed up the risks – of not being believed, of being called an attention seeker, of being sued, of feeling guilty, of expending more emotional labour than they already have – with the benefits, of protecting others, of helping the dots to be connected between multiple cases with one common perpetrator, of making a political statement about how they refuse to be silenced?

We need to ask ourselves: what is an effective way to educate people about consent and the safe options of reporting sexual assault (grassroots resources like Salvage are survivor-led and intersectional)? How are we charting the ways in which the criminal justice system is failing people who report sexual abuse (the website It’s Not Justice is a great start), in order to campaign for a fairer system? Does vigilantism have to name the accused, or can it work in other ways, like industry-wide support systems started by people with first-hand experience of sexual harassment? And why is the job of protecting people from sexual assault falling onto those who have been sexually assaulted?

@millyabraham

Rape Crisis have a helpline and services across the country.

This article originally appeared on VICE Poland

Every year on the 11th of November, tens of thousands of Polish people take part in a nationalist march in Warsaw to coincide with the country’s independence day celebrations. This year, three of the country's largest nationalist groups came together to organise the event – the National Radical Camp (ONR), the All Polish Youth and the National Movement (RN).

New this year, the organisers of the demonstration tried to attract international attention by inviting infamous right-wing figures, such as the American alt-right leader Richard Spencer – who declined the invite after the Polish government threatened to ban him from entering the country.

WATCH: 'Rise of the Right – Marching in Europe's Largest Nationalist Event', VICE's report on last year's nationalist demonstrations in Warsaw.

Local media and the police claim that 60,000 people took part in Saturday's demonstration, though government officials put the number at 30,000. Some people were seen carrying signs with nationalistic slogans, such as "Europe will be white or deserted" and "Polishness is normal". In response, an anti-fascist counter-protest was held just a few miles away, which appeared to attract a larger police presence.

Though this year's demonstration was peaceful, previous marches have seen violent clashes between the police and demonstrators, usually incited by far-right football fans – "ultras" – who see themselves as loyal defenders of the Polish traditions they say are being diluted by foreigners. Every year the government claims it can't ban the event because the demonstration meets the legal requirement of being a celebration of Polish history.

Photographer Mikolaj Maluchnik was in Warsaw on Saturday to document the event for VICE.

Local media estimate that 60,000 people attended the demonstration.

Thousands of Polish and nationalist flags and banners were carried around the demonstration.

A latin sign, meaning "Who is like God," – a reference to a belief that white people are the superior race.

Since 2009, the demonstration has been organised by the youth wing of the National Movement party.

Crowds gather to burn a banner.

The sign reads: "White Europe of Brotherly Nations."

An anti-refugee banner at the demonstration.

The leaders of the National Radical Camp displaying an anti-immigration banner.

Sean Hannity fans are filming themselves smashing Keurig coffee makers to protest the company, but not because of the environmental issues or because they're a breeding ground for bacteria. Conservatives have started doling out coffee-pod punishment because Keurig pulled its ads from Hannity's FOX News show, USA Today reports.

The decision came in the wake of Hannity's coverage of the sexual misconduct allegations against Roy Moore, the Alabama Senate candidate who was accused of pursuing a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32.

Keurig is just one of a handful of companies to pull its ad spots after Hannity appeared to call Moore's relationship with a 14-year-old "consensual," only to later say he misspoke. Realtor.com, Eloquii, 23 and Me, and vitamin maker Nature's Bounty have pulled their ads, too—but no one has started filming themselves destroying bottles of probiotics yet.

Instead, angry Hannity fans quickly fired back at Keurig with hashtags like #BoycottKeurig and #KeurigSmashChallenge, and started tweeting videos of various forms of Keurig destruction.

It's not totally clear whether the videos are meant to punish Keurig after already giving the company money or show support for an alleged child molester or just an excuse to hit a machine with a bat, but regardless, Hannity is loving it.

Watch a series of Keurig machines meet their untimely demise below and marvel at the state of our modern-day society. Happy Monday, everybody!

Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.

US News

Roy Moore Threatens Lawsuit With Campaign Under Fire
The Alabama Republican vying for the US Senate promised to sue after the Washington Post published a story detailing allegations of sexual misconduct against him made by four women who were teens at the time. Speaking to a crowd in Alabama Sunday evening, Moore said claims he was “involved with a minor child are completely false and untrue.” One woman alleged Moore touched her inappropriately when she was 14.—AP

Trump Touts Friendship with the Philippines' Duterte
President Trump said he enjoyed “a great relationship” with Rodrigo Duterte ahead of formal talks with the Philippine president in Manila Monday. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump “briefly” broached the subject of human rights with Duterte during an initial meeting “in the context of the Philippines’ fight against illegal drugs.”—USA Today

NSA Investigating Breach of Hacking Tools
The National Security Agency and the FBI have spent the past 15 months trying to understand how a group called “the Shadow Brokers” obtained NSA cyber-weapons. Some officials said they believed Russian hackers were the chief suspects, but investigators were also looking into the possibility of an internal leaker. One former NSA hacking team employee described it as “a disaster on multiple levels.”—The New York Times

Joe Biden Goes Cold on 2020 White House Bid
The former vice president said he was “not sure it’s the appropriate thing” for him to run for the presidency in 2020. Referring to the need for political change, Biden told Snapchat’s Good Luck America show: “I’d much prefer to be helping someone turn it around than being the guy trying to turn it around.”—CBS News

International News

More than 400 Killed by Earthquake in Iran and Iraq
A magnitude 7.3 quake rocked the border between the two countries on Sunday, killing hundreds (mostly Iranians) and wounding 6,000 more, according to state TV. Though a majority of victims were in Iran's Sarpol-e Zahab region, at least six people were found dead in Iraq. As rescue teams continued to look for survivors, many towns and cities in the region were struggling with power cuts.—Reuters

Lebanese Leader Returning Home to Resign
Currently in Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Saad Hariri said he would be back in Lebanon this week to “resign in the constitutional manner.” Both Iran and its Shia allies in Lebanon’s Hezbollah faction have claimed the Saudis were holding Hariri against his will. But Hariri, a Sunni, has insisted he is free to leave and blamed Hezbollah for “destroying the country.”—BBC News

Venezuela Set for Crisis Talks with Creditors
President Nicolás Maduro has insisted his country will not default on its debts ahead of a crucial meeting with international creditors Monday. Despite growing repayment obligations and US economic sanctions, Maduro said he was confident Venezuela would “renegotiate and refinance all the debt.”—AP

North Korean Soldier Shot by His Own While Defecting
A member of North Korea’s military was shot and wounded as he crossed the demilitarized zone into South Korea to defect. The soldier was said to be in recovery at a hospital after making it through the Joint Security Area, according to the South Korean military.—Bloomberg

Everything Else

Brand New Frontman Apologizes for ‘Mistreating’ Women
The band’s singer Jesse Lacey wrote in a Facebook post that his “addictive relationship with sex” meant he had “hurt people [and] mistreated them.” The offering followed Nicole Elizabeth Garey’s accusation Lacey had asked her for nude photos when she was 15.—Noisey

Advertisers Ditch ‘Hannity’ Over Roy Moore
Five companies have announced they will pull ads from Sean Hannity’s Fox News show amid the host's coverage of sexual misconduct allegationsa gainst Roy Moore in Alabama. Media Matters for America said Hannity has verbally attacked the women who accused Moore, an Alabama Republican running for Senate, of pursuing sexual relationships when they were teenagers.—NBC News

Shawn Mendes Triumphs at MTV EMAs
The 19-year-old star won awards for best artist, best song, and best fans at Sunday's ceremony in London. Eminem won best hip-hop act, despite not releasing an album in the past year. “I don’t really know how I got this,” said the rapper.—Billboard / Noisey

‘Thor: Ragnarok’ Holds Box Office Top Spot
The Disney and Marvel Studios’ movie claimed $56.6 million in its second weekend, taking its North American earnings to $211.6 million. Daddy’s Home 2 exceeded industry expectations, earning second place with $30 million.—The Hollywood Reporter

Bill Gates Promises $100 Million to Fight Alzheimer’s
The Microsoft founder pledged $50 million to the Dementia Discovery Fund, an enterprise aimed at finding treatments for Alzheimer’s. Gates will donate a further $50 million to start-ups researching the brain disease.—Reuters

Punk Rock Legend Fred Cole Dies at 69
Fred Cole, singer and guitar player with bands Dead Moon and Pierced Arrows, has died after a struggle with cancer. Record label Voodoo Doughnuts Recordings described Cole as “the real fucking deal. No one lived life to its fullest like Fred did."—Noisey

Make sure to check out the latest episode of VICE's daily podcast. Today we delve into suicide, and why it's important to talk openly about the topic.

Whether it's on movie soundtracks for cult gold like Mean Girls or Lost In Translation, or while touring with artists like Marilyn Manson and Queens of the Stone Age, Peaches – AKA Merrill Beth Nisker – has always managed to stay provocative and timeless. For the last 20 years, the Canadian has been screwing common notions of gender identity and sexuality, covered in hot pink lycra, outlandish make-up or some kind of complex shiny gold arrangement.

It was my birthday the day of this interview, and after saying "congrats" we got down to some very important chat about bowel movements.

VICE: When was the last time you said "no" to something relating to your career?
Peaches: Like two days ago it was my big chance to star in a Broadway musical and I said no. I’m kidding. I’d do that, hell yeah.

What would your specialist subject on Mastermind be?
I think I know more about 70s pop music than anything. I just know all the lyrics and all the people and facts and all this stuff. And cheesy power ballads – that’s gonna be my expertise. I’m a fucking genius at them at karaoke. Like Celine Dion and "Total Eclipse of the Heart", all of that.

When do you dislike yourself the most?
When I don't have a quick answer for questions which should be easy [laughs]. In the mornings. It’s hard to get up and be like 'good morning, I love life'. I’m pretty consistently hard on myself in general. Not down on myself, but push myself through stuff. If you’re hard on yourself in your life you never think you're doing enough, and then you're down on yourself for not doing a lot, but you’re doing a lot.

Do you have that with performances?
Nah, the show is done and I know it was good, but I pushed myself to get there. It's just where I am in the cycle of the show – at the start of a whole new album it’ll happen again.

When do you think you were in your sexual prime?
I’d say, like, my mid-thirties. I was just horny as fuck. Twenties is bullshit – you don't know. How old are you, Hannah, birthday girl?

Twenty-six today.
Just wait, just wait.

Is it to do with confidence or just desire?
I think it's just physiological and biological, plus confidence builds into you I guess.

What would your parents prefer you to have chosen as a career?
They would have preferred me to be Barbra Streisand. She's just the quintessential Jewish woman, you know. They probably didn't want me to be anything else, actually. They love what I do. I think they're just happy that I did what I did, because they didn't think I'd do anything. I wasn’t very good at school. I liked science and I liked theatre. I wanted to do musicals and we had a lot of serious theatre. We had a lot of intense group programmes and we’d do [William] Gibson plays and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Did you think you might go into that?
I was definitely into it – I wanted to be a theatre director. I went to theatre school for directing, but I didn't want to work with actors or big institutions. When you're in a theatre there’s just too much pressure of all the things you have to do. Then I found music, where I could be my own director, writer and actor. And connect with people in a better way. I just found music and performance.

What was your worst phase?
I think there was a time in early high school where I dressed like a hippy and I’d wear a lot of purple and green. For years I couldn't wear either of those colours. My hair was just brown, curly, fuzzy, long. I was smoking a lot of marijuana and I was playing a lot of acoustic guitar with friends.

How many books have you actually read and finished in the past year? Don’t lie.
[Laughs] Only like three. One was a Grace Jones biography, and I read I Love Dick. I wish I read more, but I read before bed and fall asleep and then wake up and don’t even remember where I was at.

How did you feel about I Love Dick? I loved it but I wouldn’t read it if you’re feeling strange about your current relationship.
Yeah, it’s a pretty weird book. Did you watch the TV show? It’s a whole different thing and I liked it a lot. It’s based on the letters she sends. I read the book after watching that.

When in your life have you been truly overcome with fear?
When I felt the first earthquake when I was in LA. There is nothing you can do. You can’t run away from it and you can’t even put your feet down. You can't even feel grounded and it freaked me out. It was three years ago, maybe five.

Are you generally a fearless person?
I'm fearless, I have no fear. No, everybody's fearful. It's about how you deal with it. You can’t deal with an earthquake.

How do you deal with fear?
You just have to face it and go through it to figure whether it’s fear and if it's really something or if it’s in your imagination. Does it exist? Is it something you can change? Is it something else? Usually it doesn't even exist. It's just in your mind. Your mind is a powerful enabler, you know?

I do. What’s the nicest thing you own?
My suitcase. It just moves really well. I love that suitcase. I just touch it and it rolls. It’s black, unfortunately. I don't want it to be black, but it was a present and that person got it in black. I wanted it to be… rose gold.

Do you buy yourself a lot of nice things or are you frugal?
I’m not frugal, but I definitely just don't really buy a lot of things. I’m of the Vivienne Westwood school of just getting something really good and wearing the shit out of it.

No pointless crap.
Not lots of pointless crap. I get given a lot of pointless crap, and I feel like I have to keep it, and it's the most pointless crap.

What would be your last meal?
I’d just eat macaroni and cheese, the really shitty kind. And shitty hotdogs. It would just make me so fat and ill. All that food that you love but you don't eat, because then half an hour later I would feel disgusting and I would want to die anyway. It's like glue in your ass.

Glue in your ass?
Yeah, that macaroni and cheese makes you so constipated you might as well stick glue in your ass.

Yeah, I suppose you’re right. What film or TV show makes you cry?
I like crying a lot at Drag Race when anybody gets booted off the show. It’s very emotional.

Peaches by Daria Marchik

What memory from school stands out more than any other?
I just remember the time that this girl was wearing a Girl Scout uniform and sat on the teacher.

Sat on them?
Sat on her.

In a sexy way?
No, like "shut up, teacher". I think she was getting told off. She used to wear the Girl Scouts uniform every Friday because she had Girls Scouts after. She was the, like, toughest girl, so it was weird that she’d be wearing this outfit. Anyway.

Where did you go on your first friends holiday, and what did you do?
I went to Quebec City on a skiing holiday when I was about 15. You could take a bus from where I lived in Toronto for like eight hours to get there. It was just me and two friends, and we’d put wine in little decanter things and we’d drink it while we were skiing, and we went to this really weird wet T-shirt contest and wet willy contest. We saw Kiss in the lobby.

That’s cool. What’s the grossest injury or illness you’ve ever had?
Haemorrhoids. Isn't it everybody’s? I've had it once, and the thing is, I didn't know what was going on so I literally took a picture of my ass from my phone, and I looked at it and I saw that it was haemorrhoids, and it was disgusting.

If you had to give up sex or kissing what would it be?
What kind of question is that? Anyone under 25 will give up kissing and do sex, and all the older people will say kissing. I’ll pick kissing, but I don't like the question, it’s not fair. We should have both.

@hannahrosewens

After Donald Trump stayed quiet on the Philippines’ drug war that has killed thousands when meeting with the country’s president, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has so far followed suit while in the Philippines. Trudeau has been in the country for about two days, and so far, has not said anything publicly towards President Rodrigo Duterte for alleged human rights violations.

According to CBC News, a coalition of Filipino and Canadian activists have requested the prime minister call out “appalling” alleged human rights violations in the Philippines, a Southeast Asian country whose government has waged a bloody drug war killing its own citizens and leaving bodies strewn on city streets.

"This shocking number of killings is accompanied by what seems to be complete impunity for those responsible," the Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines wrote in a letter to Trudeau. "We are deeply troubled that the victims of this state-sponsored violence are predominantly from poor, vulnerable and marginalized sectors of Philippine society."

One of the group’s founders referenced Trudeau’s stop at popular fast-food chicken chain Jollibee in the Philippines during his visit saying, "Aside from getting chickenjoy, it's better for Mr. Trudeau to raise the extrajudicial killings,” in an interview with CBC News.

The drug war in the Philippines has left at least 7,000 dead since July 2016, according to Human Rights Watch, including people suspected of using drugs and/or struggling with addiction. (Some place the death toll even higher.) The slayings have been carried out by both police (in what the government calls “self-defence”) and vigilantes, according to Duterte’s aides.

Some of the most popular illicit drugs in the Philippines are cannabis and a form of meth known as “shabu.”

According to Harry Roque, Philippines Congress member, Trump “appeared sympathetic and did not have any official position on the matter but was merely nodding his head,” when the country’s drug problems were brought up. Trump has since spoken of his “great relationship” with Duterte. (Earlier this year, Trump had a phone call with Duterte in which he praised the country’s drug war.)

Canada has a significant Filipino diaspora population, with over half a million who identify as having Filipino origins living in the country.

Canada has had its own morbid issues related to drugs over the past few years. The opioid crisis, fueled by the proliferation of bootleg fentanyl, continues to claim thousands of lives every year in Canada. Trudeau has yet to declare a national public health emergency over the crisis, though Donald Trump did so stateside in October. He has also said he's "not there yet" in regards to legalizing and regulating drugs other than cannabis to address the country's poisoned substance supply.

"President Duterte's hostile rhetoric about human rights defenders, combined with his encouragement of extrajudicial killings and guarantees of impunity, has resulted in a serious deterioration in the situation," the human rights group that penned the letter to Trudeau said of the drug war in the Philippines. "We believe it is incumbent on the government of Canada to speak out more strongly against this violence."

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said that Canada has “serious concerns” about alleged human rights violations surrounding the Philippines’ drug war, but was unsure if Trudeau would have the opportunity to address the issue with Duterte one-on-one.

"This is not a bilateral trip to the Philippines—if we have the time, we'll raise this issue," she told media on Sunday.

If called out, it’s unlikely Duterte would accept such criticism.

“You want to ask a question, I'll give you an answer: Lay off. That is not your business. That is my business. I take care of my country, and I will nurture my country to health," Duterte said when asked by reporters last week how he would respond to critique by a foreign leader on domestic matters in the Philippines.

Of course, Duterte once called former US President Barack Obama a “son of a whore” over the suggestion the US would criticize his human rights record.

Trudeau is currently in Manila for the East Asia Summit, becoming the first sitting Canadian prime minister to attend.

Government officials suggested to Global News that “the Philippines have gone out on a limb” to give Trudeau the opportunity and that it is likely the reason for his silence on its human rights record.

Yu-Ming Wu couldn’t afford his own sneakers until he got to college. Growing up in New York as the child of Chinese immigrants who had to work in sweatshops and restaurants, Ming never asked his parents for a sneaker allowance.

Now Wu has 900 piece sneaker collection and is one of the cofounders of Sneaker Con, which is self proclaimed the “greatest sneaker show on Earth.” The show just went international, hitting up a bunch of new locations, and drawing in a lot more people. But with thousands of people reselling sneakers, there are bound to be some fakes. So Wu decided to start a sneaker authentication program where customers at Sneaker Con could get shoes verified before they drop a couple grand on them.

VICE caught up with Yu-Ming Wu at Sneaker Con Toronto to find out more about the show, the authentication program and how to spot the fakes.

VICE: So you have a sneaker con authentication program, tell me, what is sneaker authentication?
Yu-Ming Wu: It’s not an official job but we do help some of our attendees figure out whether a shoe is authentic or not. Especially some of the younger kids coming in, they don’t know whether they’re getting a real shoe or fake shoes so it’s not a huge problem but they still want to have that piece of mind, that “Hey, I did buy a legit shoe.” We just help people making exchanges to know that they are getting a legit shoe.

What motivated you to start the sneaker authentication program at Sneaker Con?
A few years ago, we had a kid who bought a pair of shoes and it turned out they were fake. He came up to us crying, that’s when we realized we had a problem. We ended up refunding him that money, took the shoe and used it as an example of what we need to do at Sneaker Con.

Is it a really big problem, fakes?
At Sneaker Con it’s not a big problem. We do have one or two. There are guys who see this as an opportunity, you go to anything like this where there are high value goods, someone’s going to try to rip you off.

Can you walk me through the process of authenticating a sneaker, what are you looking for?
So one of the first things that we do is actually look at the box. This is a well constructed box. We look at the printing. It’s really well printed, everything is printed sharp, everything seems to be where it should be. We look at that first and then we look at the rest of the construction of the box. While this box is a little beat up it is still good in terms of what it should look like. We look at the labels, make sure all of the numbers and everything else matchup.

Sometimes these numbers actually do not match up, or things might be misprinted. The labels are a hard one to say because different countries have different labels, so we don’t generally use it but we do look at the number to make sure it’s the right number.

And I can see the price tag there too.
Yes, this is actually a very pricey shoe, it’s very high value. Obviously when someone is paying for this shoe they want to get it authenticated. So we look at the box first, everything looks legit to me so far. But again, someone can just switch a shoe in there. So then what we do is we take the shoe out, put down the box. First thing we do is look at the construction of the shoe, make sure it feels right. Another thing that we do is we take a sniff.

A lil’ shoe sniff?
We take a sniff, as long as it hasn’t been worn. We make sure that there’s no toxic glues, a lot of the big companies, especially Nike and Adidas, they don’t use toxic glues anymore. If you smell it, and it smells pretty toxic — something’s wrong. That’s an easy sign. We also looking the laces, the stitching. Everything looks pretty legit, it’s even. With some of the fake ones the stitching is a bit crooked. And then we look at the sole. There’s no misprint, there’s no jagged edges. Everything is sharp, everything is clean. So for the most part we know that the shoe is real. It’s easy to tell. We also look at how well it’s glued together, with some of the fake factories some of the glue might be coming out. If this was a bad shoe and it was mocked as a “B” grade, we would look on the inside where it would say “B” grade.

The shoe sniff | Via Daily VICE.

We look at the logos too make sure they’re printed well, the stitching again. At some point they might have gotten some of this right but on some level the fake factories just can’t get it right because they don’t have the quality assurance and the high end machines the legitimate factories do have. Legit factories invest millions in terms of their production values. These fake factories, they don’t have that money to invest in high level production. So that’s how we legitimately check the shoe, and from the eye we can tell “this guy is real.” I’m touching it too, it feels right in my hand, but that’s from years of experience. As we get into the high end pieces that’s when we have to look at everything, we have to take out the insole, we have to look at the labels and make sure everything is correct. After all those checks we’ll tag it up and say this is a legit shoe.

So you’re using sight, touch, smell—human senses. So there’s also room for human error, how do you explain that to somebody who says “this doesn’t sound good enough”?
I would then ask them to bring me a fake and show them the differences. Until they say I have a fake and this looks exactly like a fake I’m going to say “we’re right, we have years of experience doing this.” That’s all we can say, if they’ve made up their mind that this is not legit there’s not much we can do. We can take them back to the Adidas factory and say “hey guys can you verify?”

Have you ever seen a shoe you couldn’t authenticate?
Yeah, sometimes we get shoes that are just so old that we don’t have anything to compare it to. Or other times the shoes that are so limited edition that we have never seen or don’t have a shoe to compare it to. So really old, or very limited edition.

What do you say to someone who justifies buying a fake by saying “it looks the same but it costs a lot less?
That person has made up their mind that they’re comfortable with buying a fake. They’re happy with it. I personally would prefer if they buy a shoe that has been knocked off instead of completely counterfeited. “Knocked off” means it would just be from a lower end brand. That’s what I can tell that person, but if they’re happy about buying a fake there’s not much we can do to change their mind. But we’ll do our best to educate them on why they shouldn’t be buying fakes.

Why should people not buy fakes?
It doesn’t make sense to buy a fake. You’re supporting counterfeit factories, you’re supporting crooks and criminals. Criminal enterprises. And who know what those guys do with that money?

What makes a good authenticator?
As I mentioned it’s the guys who’ve worked in the industry for years. They’ve touched so many shoes over the course of their life that they can just look at a shoe and be like “oh man that’s a fake.” Without batting an eye. Those are the guys who make good authenticators.

Which sneaker is knocked off the most?
The Air Jordan line, still one of the most knocked off shoes because of their long heritage and their value. A lot of Yeezys too because of their value and they’re limited edition. So Jordans, Yeezys, NMDs, Ultra Boosts.

How did you develop these skills and how do you keep up with the market?
I’ve been in the industry for 17 years, over the years I’ve just looked at these shoes, touched them and over the years its like you take a microscope and look at these guys. A lot of times when you see a fake you just know, there’s no way it’s real. There are times it can look really good, but that’s when you look at all the details.

How would you explain sneaker culture to someone who isn’t into it?
You know anyone who really looks at a pair of shoes and says “oh my god, that’s a beautiful design,” it’s not just a functional accessory for them, it’s a work of art. To hear that from someone, that’s when you can say that guy’s probably a sneakerhead. We have a really high appreciation for sneakers. If you appreciate sneakers to the point of putting one on your trophy case, you’re very much a sneakerhead.

What’s your sneaker collection look like?
It used to be pretty big, I used to have 1,300 to 1,400 pairs. I’ve slowly brought it down to 800 pairs, but it’s climbing back up. At this point I’m probably at 900 pairs.

Do you wear all of them?
I probably wear 20 percent of my sneakers. The rest of them I treat as art.

Amazon has locked down a deal with the J.R.R. Tolkien's estate to make a Lord of the Rings TV series, giving it a "multi-season commitment," Deadline reports.

Jeff Bezos has been gunning for a Game of Thrones-style tentpole on the streaming service since September, and the new Lord of the Rings deal looks like a big step in that direction. Netflix and HBO were reportedly also vying for the rights before Amazon locked down a deal.

According to Deadline, the company is already funneling a huge amount of money into the project, dropping around $200 million just to lock down the rights and likely planning to spend at least $100 million for a first season. Amazon Studios will spearhead the production, with help from the Tolkien estate, HarperCollins, and New Line Cinema.

"The Lord of the Rings is a cultural phenomenon that has captured the imagination of generations of fans through literature and the big screen," Amazon Studios scripted TV head Sharon Tal Yguado said in a statement following the announcement.

The upcoming series will reportedly take place before the events of Fellowship of the Ring, but other than that, there's no word on what Middle Earth tales or Silmarillion subplots the series will focus on.

Are we finally going to get the Tom Bombadil spinoff the world has been breathlessly waiting for? Or maybe a police procedural starring the Rangers of the North? Or a sitcom about Butterbur at the Prancing Pony? Whatever the show may be, at least one thing is for sure—it's going to cost a shit-ton of money.

Related: LARPing Saved My Life

By 1:30 AM on Sunday, Abiola Busari's house party at the University of North Texas had gotten a little out of hand. About 100 people were packed into his small third-story apartment, dancing, jumping, and generally losing their shit while a DJ played. One moment, everything was fine, even if the banger was a little too rowdy. Then this happened:

Busari's floor completely collapsed, sending at least six partiers tumbling through a gaping hole in the ground, the Houston Chronicle reports. They fell straight into the living room of the apartment below, splayed out among bottles of booze, broken furniture, and debris. The lucky revelers who didn't fall through teetered on the edge of the abyss, pressing up against the wall to keep from falling in. While they watched from the relative safety of the third floor, their buddies tried to claw themselves out of the pit like BoJack and Jessica Biel wading through the bowels of Hollywoo.

According to FOX 4, six people were treated for injuries at the scene, but no one suffered more than a few minor scrapes and bruises. Busari told WFAA things really got out of hand when a bunch of randos started showing up at his place, which is never a good sign. Davion Keys, a 22-year-old partygoer who crashed through the floor, told the Chronicle he didn't even know the folks throwing the rager.

"I fell on numerous people," Keys said. "Immediately the water pipes were busted and water was coming from all over the place. I remember being in midair falling, and I crawled my way to flat ground and went out the back window."

Thankfully, the kids who live beneath Busari's apartment weren't home when a terrifying stream of bodies, cheap booze, and splintered wood fell into their living room, according to CBS DFW. At the time of the collapse, they had already trekked to a campus police station to complain about the party after noticing the ceiling was quaking, worried it might collapse. According to Carley Carroll, who lives in the second-floor apartment, everything she and her roommates owned was destroyed. Even for a professional party cleaning company, the damage was irrevocable.

"It’s worse than you could possibly imagine because the sprinklers were on for two hours," Carroll told CBS. "So not only was all of our stuff crushed, but it’s completely soaked with water. Everything is gone."

The apartment complex in Denton, Texas, housed about 50 students who have all been evacuated from the building, according to FOX 4. While those tenants scramble to find a place to stay, Carroll is looking to replace everything she owned that was ruined in the incident—already managing to raise about $1,000 on GoFundMe.

Busari also started his own GoFundMe page to raise money for both his apartment and his neighbors' after all the damage his "night filled with fun and good energy" ultimately caused.

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

Related:

This article originally appeared on Tonic.

For nearly a decade, Andy Sandness shut himself away from the world. In late 2006, he put a rifle beneath his chin and pulled the trigger. He didn’t die; instead, the gunshot destroyed most of his face. Doctors tried to rebuild it, but there was only so much they could do; he was left with a quarter-sized mouth and a prosthetic nose that kept falling off. He shrunk from human contact.

Then, in mid-2016, Calen "Rudy" Ross shot himself and died in southwestern Minnesota. Ross, like Sandness, was an avid hunter and outdoorsman; at his funeral, fellow hunters were asked to wear their camouflage.

Lilly Ross, his widow, agreed to donate her husband's lungs, kidneys, and other organs. But she also agreed to a much rarer donation: her husband’s face. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic found that Ross and Sandness were a near-perfect match in age, blood type, skin colour, and facial structure. They could have been cousins, surgeon Samir Mardini told the Associated Press.

"When I found out how he had passed, it gave me chills," Sandness told the AP.

Sandness had begun exploring a face transplant in 2012, and had been placed on a waiting list in early 2016. When Lilly agreed to donate her husband’s face, she was eight months pregnant. Despite worrying what it would be like to see Rudy’s face on a stranger, she reasoned that one day she’d want the couple’s child to understand how his father had helped another person. Thanks to the Rosses, Sandness would no longer hide from other people, or from mirrors.

“I wouldn't go out in public. I hated going into bigger cities," he told the AP. "And now I'm just really spreading my wings and doing the things I missed out on—going out to restaurants and eating, going dancing."

The operation—a first for the Mayo Clinic, though it was pioneered by a French team in 2005—required more than 60 medical professional working for 56 hours. When it was over, Sandness had his new face, but he’s had to work hard to acclimate to it.

Sandness, an oilfield electrician, takes medication every day to prevent his body from rejecting the transplant. He practices at training his nerves to work with his new face; he gives himself facial massages. At 32 years old, he recites the alphabet while driving and showering to improve his speech.

And now he’s finally met Lilly Ross. Before she saw Sandness, she worried that meeting him would be too much like seeing her husband; that she’d recognize something of Rudy in this other man. To her relief, she didn’t see that. She saw a man she’d helped. "It made me proud," Ross told the AP. "The way Rudy saw himself...he didn't see himself like that."

Their meeting offered Ross some measure of solace after a difficult year of grieving. Her young son, Leonard, born in the aftermath of her husband’s death, embraced the man who now wore his face. Ross choked up to describe it. “Meeting Andy, it has finally given me closure," she told the AP. “Everything happened so fast.”

Sandness told her: "I wanted to show you that your gift will not be wasted."

Donald Trump did not run his presidential campaign solely against Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. Instead, he waged war on the mainstream media, which made a convenient target for a demagogue hungry for one. The gaggle of national press following Trump everywhere he went in 2015 and 2016 included lots of reporters from Washington, DC and New York City, and their stories often focused on the nastiest parts of his speeches, or insisted on fact-checking his many false statements. At his raucous rallies, these journalists were confined to the media pen, where it was easy for Trump to call them out as the nearest personification of America's (and his own) elite establishment enemies. His supporters would oblige with boos and insults directed at the confined journalists, who endured months of hostility from Trump, his staff, and angry fans.

For decades, Republicans had claimed, sometimes fairly, that they got unfair coverage from a liberal press. But this was something else. On the final day of the campaign Trump called the media "dishonest" and said the "New York Times is a total lie" while the crowd chanted "CNN sucks!"

Trump hasn't moderated this language since becoming president. His former chief strategist Steve Bannon—now back to his old gig running Breitbart—made sure the New York Times printed his quote about the media being the "opposition party." Trump himself called the press "the enemy of the American people" in February, and a very early 2020 reelection ad over the summer attacked specific journalists. All of that media bashing has had an effect: Last month, a poll found that 46 percent of American voters—and over three-quarters of Republicans—believed major news organizations fabricated stories about the president and his administration.

We're only now seeing the effects of Trump's unprecedented war on what he calls "fake news" and others just call news. And the biggest beneficiary of it to date could be Roy Moore.

Moore, the far-right Christian conservative candidate for the Senate in Alabama, has been accused by several women of pursuing them sexually when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. One said he touched her inappropriately when she was just 14, and on Monday, the latest accuser, a woman named Beverly Young Nelson, said he attacked her and she feared he would rape her. Moore has pushed back against the allegations, while not categorically denying he went out with teens. But what's notable is how much he's borrowing from Trump's playbook: He's aggressively denouncing not just the women but the paper that broke the first story about his sexual conduct, the Washington Post. On Sunday, he called that article "fake news" and threatened to sue the Post; in a fundraising email that redefined chutzpah, he reassured supporters the accusations were the work of "the Obama-Clinton Machine's liberal media lapdogs" and turned the charges into a chance to ask for money.

A great many Republicans and conservatives have refused to back Moore up. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he believed Moore's accusers and added the candidate should step aside. Several writers at National Review who were already uncomfortable with Moore's fringe views have attacked him and emphasized the credibility of the allegations.

But outside of establishment circles—where Moore was never popular—the air, at least until Monday, was thick with Moore defenders. Alabama Republican officials largely stood behind him clutching a variety of arguments and excuses. Far-right publications repeated pro-Moore talking points, and Bannon reportedly sent a pair of Breitbart reporters to Alabama specifically to discredit the women from the Post story. (Breitbart also published a preemptive defense of Moore after the candidate apparently leaked a letter from the Post to the right-wing site.) One recent poll of Alabama voters showed Moore falling behind his Democratic opponent Doug Jones, but also found that 29 percent of respondents were, incredibly, more likely to vote for him in the wake of the accusations.

All of this is the logical end-point to the anti-media feeling stirred up by Trump. If journalists are all liars and out to get Republicans—particularly those on the hard right—then the stories they print are simply lies. In fact, if the stories accuse a conservative of wrongdoing, then he must actually be doing something right to draw their ire. And if subsequent reporting seems to buttress those allegations, as it has in Moore's case, it's just more lies.

Everyone has a tendency to believe things we want to hear and disbelieve the things we don't. Liberals are often too credulous about whatever the hot new anti-Trump story is, and bad information and partisan bias are endemic across the political spectrum.

But while the country's biggest, most-resourced news organizations have made plenty of errors over the years, they have almost never invented stories. The Post's original Moore story was a model of scrupulous journalism that confirmed the women's accounts as much as possible, with the reporters speaking to more than 30 people. And the major publications break stories that are damaging for both parties, unlike purely ideological outlets like Breitbart. Clinton's use of personal email as secretary of State, which became a major cudgel used against her in 2016, was originally broken in 2015 by none other than the New York Times.

There is a big leap between calling journalists unfairly slanted against a certain party and calling them liars. Or there used to be, anyway—Trump and his allies like Moore have made that leap so many times, it's now routine. And a significant number of people believe their beloved politicians over the press. "This is not normal" is by now a cliche, but, well, it's not.

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Ayahuasca! Maybe you tried it once on your South American backpacking odyssey. The same trip where you had that really good coke and fell in love with a mysterious silent German girl who was, in hindsight, just not very good at speaking English. It’s a sacred ceremonial medicine used by Indigenous Amazonian people that’s high in DMT and therefore induces some pretty heavy hallucinations that have proved “spiritually transformative” for many bored white tourists. Who, according to new research, might actually be benefiting from the experience they’re partaking in solely to brag about back home.

Researchers from the University of Exeter and University College London suggest ayahuasca use improves overall well-being, and can help tackle alcohol abuse and mental health issues such as depression. They formed these suggestions analysing Global Drug Survey data from more than 96,000 people worldwide, which indicated its potential as a psychiatric medicine. The study, published in Nature journal , is thought to be the largest survey of ayahuasca users completed to date.

Users of ayahuasca—which is brewed with the leaves of two Amazonian plants, the psychotria viridis bush and the caapi vine—reported less problematic drinking than classic psychedelic users of LSD and mushrooms. When responding to the online Global Drug Survey, which was advertised through social media, ayahuasca users also reported better overall feelings of well-being than comparable groups.

In an accompanying media release, senior author of the study Celia Morgan said the results were encouraging. "In this work, long-term ayahuasca use has not been found to impact on cognitive ability, produce addiction or worsen mental health problems,” she commented.“In fact, some of these observational studies suggest that ayahuasca use is associated with less problematic alcohol and drug use, and better mental health and cognitive functioning."

It’s worth noting though that the whole ayahuasca spiritquest thing isn’t always pleasant. With its acute effects lasting six hours or longer, it’s much more intense than LSD or mushrooms, and many respondents indicated as such. The survey data also showed a higher incidence of lifetime mental illness diagnoses among ayahuasca users, especially in countries without a tradition of ayahuasca use—aka people who have no idea what they’re doing.

"If ayahuasca is to represent an important treatment, it is critical that its short and long-term effects are investigated, and safety established,” Morgan said.

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David Murray describes himself as a veteran of the war on drugs. He maintains it’s not heroin that’s hurt him the most, but prohibition and the criminalization of addiction.

"My whole life has been consumed by the drug war," Murray says.

He’s spent years on the street, had run-ins with police, and seen the inside of a prison. But that was all in a past life, Murray told VICE. He’s still addicted to opioids. But he left the hustle and the hassles that come with it years ago. Murray found activism and became a high-profile member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drugs Users (VANDU). He's also one of North America’s first patients to receive diacetylmorphine—the medical term for heroin—via Canada’s health-care system. Instead of buying from a dealer, Murray visits Crosstown Clinic in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and receives a prescribed dose of pharmaceutical-grade opiates.

I recount all of this to emphasize that when I ask Murray for his advice on how Canada should respond to the overdose epidemic, he knows what he’s talking about.

“We need to end prohibition,” Murray says. “We need to bring an end to the drug war."

He recommends decriminalization: removing penalties for personal possession. Then legalization: bringing supply under the control of the government, where quality would be regulated to minimize the risks of fentanyl and other dangerous substances.

“I’m talking about the end of the drug war, including amnesty, and reparations,” Murray says.

“How do two countries end a war? One side either wins or they make an agreement of some kind. And there are reparations.”

Anything less would be unjust, says Murray. “Really, to make it fair, there would have to be reparations.”

Photo by Travis Lupick

Vancouver experiment

To many, that likely sounds radical and unrealistic. But the problem for which I sought Murray's advice is similarly without precedent. This year, an estimated 1,500 people in BC are expected to die of an illicit-drug overdose. That compares to an average of 204 deaths each year from 2001 to 2010.

Vancouver—Canada’s petri dish for harm-reduction and progressive drug policy—has already moved further in the direction of legalization than most people are aware.

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) has recorded fewer drug crimes every year since 2010. From 3,480 that year to 2,291 in 2013, to 1,545 last year. The force has stated publicly that low-level possession offences are no longer a “policing priority.”

This trend toward de-facto decriminalization is mirrored in other areas of governments’ responsibilities.

Four of BC’s largest social-housing providers—the Portland Hotel Society, Atira Property Management, RainCity Housing, and Lookout Emergency Aid Society—have all integrated into their buildings what they call “shared-using rooms,” where tenants are told they should bring drugs to inject there in relative safety. Together, these nonprofit organizations receive tens of millions of government dollars every year and, inside their buildings, they have all essentially decriminalized drugs.

In more visible spaces, BC’s government has similarly opened what it calls "overdose-prevention sites." There are more than 20 of these locations across the province, where people can bring illegal drugs and inject them under the supervision of staff.

More recently, just last Friday (November 11), BC’s new minister of mental health and addictions, Judy Darcy, announced the government was making fentanyl-test strips available. That is, the minister encouraged people to bring illegal drugs to government facilities where, instead of confiscating them, authorities will help users understand what’s in their drugs and then hope they’ll use them in as safe a manner as possible.

Zoë Dodd is an organizer with the Toronto Harm Reduction Alliance and part of a team that’s run an unsanctioned “pop up” injection site in Moss Park since last August. She tells VICE that Ontario remains years behind BC on harm reduction, and argues if it doesn’t catch up fast, it’s going to cost people’s lives.

“All we’ve seen [since fentanyl arrived] is an increase in cops and enforcement,” Dodd says. “Police are still going after people for low-level possession.”

Ontario can’t replicate every reform that BC has overnight, she says, but certain policies are ready for immediate implementation. For example, Ontario could instruct police to stop responding to overdose calls and instead let fire and ambulance services take those, as Vancouver has for years. Dodd says she also wants shared-using rooms incorporated into Toronto social-housing projects as soon as possible. “These are solutions that could really help,” she says.

Integrated injection sites, drug-testing strips—oh yeah, there’s also an illegal marijuana dispensary in Vancouver that operates on a Downtown Eastside lot owned by the provincial government.

Sarah Blyth, who helps run the dispensary, tells VICE it makes marijuana available as an opioid substitute. “It can help with pain from withdrawal,” she says.

The small operation employees past and present drug users and Blyth notes that’s proved beneficial to clients. “It’s people from the neighbourhood helping each other,” she explains, noting Insite has employed drug users since its founding. “I haven’t seen a better model. Because they understand. There’s empathy. They’ve used those drugs and know where people are at, what their options are, and where they’re coming from.”

Users getting organized


All of these responses to BC’s fentanyl crisis are the latest developments in a long evolution of progressive drug policies in Vancouver.

Officials believe that BC’s emphasis on harm reduction is working, at least in the way that a finger in a dike works to slow a flood. On November 9, the province’s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, told CBC News that without these programs, it’s possible BC would not see 1,500 fatal overdoses in 2017, but closer to 4,500 deaths.

Getting Vancouver this far down the road to legalization was not easy.

In Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City's Struggle with Addiction, a new book out this month, I recount how Vancouver's struggle was led by drug users and their allies. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, this group based in Canada’s poorest postal code, the Downtown Eastside, demanded a say in drug-policy reform.

Their story began in the early 1990s. A nurse named Liz Evans, just 25 years old, was given a beat up old building on East Hastings Street and filled it with tenants who struggled with severe addictions to drugs.

Revolutionary at the time, Evans gave people rooms without conditions. They would not be evicted for using drugs or if they suffered a disruptive mental-health crisis. The organization she named the Portland Hotel Society transformed how BC provides homes for its most marginalized citizens.

Meanwhile, a single mother with a fiery activist streak named Ann Livingston began plastering the neighbourhood with fliers, asking drug users if they would meet her in a Downtown Eastside park. When they did, Livingston asked them what they needed most. The answer was a space where drug users could meet and maintain their addictions without fear of police harassment, and where the risk of a fatal overdose was minimized.

In 1995, Livingston opened an unsanctioned supervised-injection site that was likely the first in North America. They called it Back Alley and, though the chaotic experiment didn't last long, a noteworthy obit ran in a Downtown Eastside community newsletter.

“The idea that users can organize themselves is starting to grow," it read, "and even if...Back Alley were to shut down tomorrow, the idea that we must take control of our own lives, and that we have the numbers and the knowledge to do so, is here to stay.”

In 1997, Livingston partnered with Bud Osborn, a Downtown Eastside poet and a drug user who was originally from Ohio. The two of them along with dozens of addicts founded the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU). Last September, the organization marked its twentieth anniversary.

Over the following decade, VANDU and the Portland Hotel Society waged a political street fight against the governments of Vancouver and British Columbia. They picketed health-board meetings, occupied City Hall, and marched with bullhorns literally screaming for a say in the policies that affected them. In doing so, they forced the regional health authority to a drop one-for-one requirement for needle exchange that had contributed to an explosion of HIV and other infectious diseases. In 2003, the Portland Hotel Society opened North America's first sanctioned-injection facility, Insite. In 2014, long-time heroin addicts worked with physicians at Crosstown Clinic to take North America’s first prescription-heroin program beyond the confines of a clinical trial.

Not a ‘free for all’

Their story continues. Today, at several locations in Vancouver, drug users are leading the response to fentanyl. At VANDU's headquarters on East Hastings Street, for example, Hugh Lampkin, helps run an overdose-prevention site that's staffed by active users. He also manages teams that do similar work patrolling Downtown Eastside alleys.

Like Murray, Lampkin maintains the fentanyl crisis will only get worse until the drugs that people use are supplied by the government. He emphasizes he doesn't like the word "legalization."

"You don't want people to think it would be a free for all," he explains. "Regulation" is the term Lampkin prefers.

"With regulation—or my version of it—you don’t have to set up anything new," Lampkin says. "The infrastructure is already there. You would use the pharmacy system." He notes an opioid prescription would require regular visits to a doctor. "Kids would see that it’s not a big party," he adds.

A number of prominent BC politicians have said that, because of fentanyl, it is time to at least begin talking about the sort of regulation-heavy version of legalization that Lampkin describes. They include Dr. Hedy Fry, Liberal MP for Vancouver Centre, Don Davies, NDP MP for Vancouver Kingsway, and Andrew Weaver, leader of BC's Green party, among others.

Asked what he would do if placed in charge of the government’s response to fentanyl, the president of the Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs (VAPUD), Jordan Westfall , focuses on pragmatic options and thinks short-term. He lists policies that could be deployed to begin reducing overdose deaths as soon as tomorrow.

The first is the declaration of a nation-wide health emergency.

The second Westfall mentions is for Health Canada to dispatch small and agile harm-reduction teams to any area where there's a sharp increase in overdose deaths. These teams could establish "pop-up" overdose-prevention sites like those activists pitched in Toronto and Ottawa last August, Westfall explains. "If this is an emergency, hire a few of those people to go across the country to set up tents wherever they may be needed."

And a third: “Let’s stop and freeze any policy change that might increase overdose deaths," Westfall says. For example, he notes that doctors, pummeled by the media in recent years for over-prescribing opioid painkillers like OxyContin, are cutting people off of drugs to which they've grown addicted. An unintended consequence is that many are turning to heroin, and then instead finding fentanyl.

Westfall acknowledges that over-prescribing is a problem, but argues it's one that cannot be tackled without consideration for the challenges posed by fentanyl.

"We're trying to get people away from prescription pills," he says. "But when we do that, we forget that people who will continue using opioid drugs could end up dying because of that.

"I think we shouldn’t do that right now," Westfall maintains. "If there’s any evidence that a policy increases overdose deaths, then maybe don’t do that right now. Just say no.”

Travis Lupick is a journalist based in Vancouver. His first book, Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City's Struggle with Addiction, was published in November 2017. You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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It has been said that women have a habit of apologizing too much. But amid the wave of sexual abuse allegations coming to light in the aftermath of Harvey Weinstein's downfall, it has become clear that men have the opposite problem: a seemingly pathological inability to say the words "I am sorry."

On Friday, Louis C.K. confirmed a New York Times report detailing how he had masturbated in front of multiple female comedians without their consent. "These stories are true," C.K. wrote in a lengthy statement. "At the time, I said to myself that what I did was OK because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true."

Although C.K. noted, "I have been remorseful of my actions" and "there is nothing about this that I forgive myself for," instead of actually atoning for his sins, he emphasized "the power [he] had over these women" who "admired" him and how he "took advantage of the fact that [he] was widely admired" in the comedy community.

The three words curiously and glaringly missing from C.K.'s statement? I am sorry.

Unlike other prominent men who have been accused of sexual misconduct, Louis C.K. actually owned up to his bad behaviour. "I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them," C.K. wrote of his victims. So what is it then about those three little words—I am sorry—that men find so difficult to say?

Apologies aren't only about admitting you were wrong, but serve as an implicit promise that you're going to try to correct your behavior and way of thinking in the future. I have a theory that boys just aren't taught to apologize in the same way girls are so, in an effort to right this societal wrong, here's a guide for men on how to apologize.

Don't: Apologize for offending the people you hurt.

Let's just get this one out of the way. The oldest tool in the faux apology toolbox is "I'm sorry if [insert shitty action here] made you feel that way." I know it's bullshit. You know it's bullshit. Whoever you're apologizing to knows it's bullshit. The reason your actions made someone else feel bad is probably because of something you did. So just own it.

The other problem with men pseudo-apologizing to women with the "I'm sorry I made you upset" is that it plays into the old stereotype of women being too emotional, which just makes it even shittier.

Do: Put yourself in your victim's shoes.

This might seem like a kindergarten-level piece of advice, but before you say anything, imagine if you were the person you hurt—what would you want to hear?

Don't: Blame your behaviour on outside factors.

When Weinstein responded to the initial New York Times report, he explained, "I came of age in the 60's and 70's, when all the rules about behaviour and workplaces were different." Although the disgraced film executive did note that it's not an excuse, that's exactly what it is. When you make those excuses, you're suggesting that you don't take full responsibility for what you've done.

After actor Anthony Rapp accused Kevin Spacey of making sexual advances toward him when he was only 14, Spacey claimed "not to remember the encounter."

"If I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behaviour," Spacey wrote. Blaming it on the alcohol doesn't excuse trying to sleep with a 14-year-old, and implying that it does only hurts your case—and the victim—more.

Do: Apologize for everything.

Sometimes there's more to apologize for than your physical actions. Louis C.K. spent years denying the accusations he confirmed after the New York Times report came out. Although he does say in his statement, "I have been remorseful of my actions. And I’ve tried to learn from them. And run from them," he doesn't apologize for previously denying legitimate reports about his sexual misconduct. C.K.'s statements of denial—in September, he told the New York Times, "I’m not going to answer to that stuff, because they’re rumors"—is deeply offensive to his victims.

Don't: Change the topic in order to make yourself the victim.

In Spacey's apology to Rapp, he came out as gay, perhaps in an attempt to change the conversation, or position himself as a victim of the closet. It's hard to overstate the negative reaction to Spacey's statement—everyone from GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis to Trevor Noah to Billy Eichner came out against it—which goes to show the public has little patience for self-pity when it comes to abusers.

After a man accused George Takei of groping him while he was passed out, the Star Trek star denied all allegations and then, in a (now-deleted) tweet, blamed "Russian bots" for "amplify[ing] stories containing the allegations against [him]." HuffPost's Philip Lewis tweeted in response, "I'm done with 2017," which best sums up the general reaction to this.

Do: Say I'm sorry.

There are a million ways to evade just saying "I'm sorry." Louis C.K. said, "I have been remorseful of my actions."

Kevin Spacey said, "I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior."

Harvey Weinstein said, "I appreciate the way I've behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it."

Art Landesman, the former publisher of Artforum who resigned after nine women accused him of sexual harassment, said, "I fully recognize that I have tested certain boundaries, which I am working hard to correct. I have never willfully or intentionally harmed anyone."

I could keep going forever.

Just say I'm sorry, guys. Accept that it won't mean people will forgive you. In fact, accept that this isn't about how you feel at all. It's about the pain you've inflicted on others and acknowledging remorse for your shitty actions not because you were caught, but because what you did was wrong.

Pretty basic stuff, really.

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On my 16th birthday, in 1995, I wrote in my journal about how happy I was that my mother hadn’t let me date yet. “I’m still a virgin and drug free,” I wrote. “As corny as it sounds, I never looked into my future and saw myself any other way.”

I don’t know how most 16-year-olds viewed their own virginity in the 1990s, but in the small, conservative, heavily evangelical town in northern Arkansas where I grew up, sexuality was tremendously fraught. We were taught, explicitly and implicitly, that we should constantly fend off boys and their desires. If I viewed reaching 16 and still being “sweet” as a triumph, it was only because the prevailing view around me was that my budding sexuality was essentially a battle to maintain purity against the perversions of boys and men.

Even though these were not messages I heard at home or from everyone, they infiltrated my thinking. Women should get married, and men were the spiritual leaders of the households. Girls should never, ever have sex before marriage. Boys, meanwhile, most often seemed to have their sexuality and misdeeds framed in relation to the girls they might hurt—“Don’t get a girl pregnant!”—because she would be the one to suffer the consequences.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this world as revelations about the strange romantic history of Roy Moore, the Republican Senate candidate from Alabama, have come to light. After he was accused of pursuing sexual encounters with teenagers when he was in his 30s—one was just 14 at the time—one might be forgiven for assuming the man’s career was over and that he could no longer win. After all, even Republicans have started to denounce him: The National Republican Senatorial Committee will no longer fundraise with him, at least two senators have withdrawn their endorsement, and some are calling on the state’s governor to delay the special election—Moore is running to replace Jeff Sessions, who is now serving as attorney general in the Trump administration. (Kay Ivey, the state’s Republican governor, has so far said she plans to do no such thing.)

Moore, meanwhile, has denied the claims, or tried to discredit the women behind them. Steve Bannon, the former Trump advisor now backing Moore, suggested the story amounts to a conspiracy between the Democrats and the Washington Post (which Moore has threatened to sue) to scuttle the man’s candidacy and career. The candidate claimed he doesn’t know the woman who said he stripped their clothes—and tried to get her to touch his underwear—when she was 14, Leigh Corfman. And his hard-core supporters have even taken to pointing at what they call her “checkered past.”

In some ways, this can be chalked up to hypocrisy among the evangelical Christians of the South, overlooking their morals in a quest for power. More than that, though, there are a host of Alabama Republicans insisting a 30-something man dating teenagers is not that abnormal. After all, Joseph was (likely) much older when he married Mary. A county GOP chair said any alleged incident was irrelevant because it would have happened so long ago, and he didn’t see what the big deal was with a 32-year-old dating a 14-year-old. This weekend, Moore’s own Baptist minister said he believed the allegations of misconduct were untrue because Moore said they were.

But it’s also a reminder that nearly every time this country experiences a watershed moment for women’s rights, there are some people who don’t find feminist struggles necessary, or useful, or something to celebrate. Just three years ago, Women Against Feminism started a tumblr campaign explaining why they didn’t need feminism, and the idea that discrimination against women doesn’t exist in American society circulated in conservative circles again during the last election, even as many of us celebrated the prospect of electing the first female president. The current #metoo campaign against sexual harassment and sexual assault isn’t resonating for everyone in America, and it’s safe to assume those skeptics might be heavily concentrated in heavily Christian southern states like Alabama.

Kathryn Brightbill, a policy analyst who advocates on behalf of home-schooled children, recently wrote about Moore and how he fits into a culture in which fundamentalist Christians urge women to be young when they get married. “As a teenager, I attended a lecture on courtship by a home-school speaker who was popular at the time,” she recalled. “He praised the idea of ‘early courtship’ so the girl could be molded into the best possible helpmeet for her future husband.”

Most of the churches in my hometown were evangelical Christian congregations, and some were fundamentalist, like the ones Brightbill writes about. While many of the churches varied both in practices and in doctrine, at the conservative end, women were not allowed to wear pants or cut their hair or go to college. They were isolated, governed only by the ethos of their small-town attendees and their traditional values. It was a situation easily exploited by predators.

But the governing idea—that young women can and maybe should marry much older men—isn’t limited to a small, fundamentalist segment. I have more than one friend who married a much older man as a teenager: the youngest was a 15-year-old who married a 24-year-old (the age of consent was 16 but her parents' permission meant no one else got involved). This was, in part, an effort to contain female sexuality: it was OK to start having sex if you were married. In many cases, my friends were already sexually active, with marriage serving as an after-the-fact curative. My friends had started to have sex as young as 12, while still in middle school, most often with older boys and sometimes with men. They assumed they’d marry their boyfriends; the result was that 13-, 14-, and 15-year-olds often spent their time talking about marriage. I didn’t think about this as hypocrisy, but did think they’d lost the battle and I had won, and that my friends were jealous of me for being a virgin. I was a bit of an insufferable princess, but in such cultures, women are often pitted against each other in this way.

Saturday Night Live naturally made jokes about Alabama being backward this weekend, but it's fair to say the South generally has different attitudes about this stuff—and is bringing up the rear in some national trends. Teenage birth rates are declining everywhere, but remain highest in the South and Southwest. Child marriage is uncommon, but most often crops up in the same areas. Evangelical Christians, meanwhile, are the most likely to say children are better off with a parent (most likely the mother) staying at home.

It’s indicative not just of a culture that invites predation, but also one that undervalues the contributions of women. We are expected to be the guardians of spiritual purity, mothers, helpmates to our husbands, and not much else. If this is the case, why not start early? And if you’re not going to have a career, you’re better off with a man who can already provide well for you—and he’s likely to be older. Some people might think its weird for grown men to date high school girls, as one of Moore’s former colleagues has said of his past behavior, but people won’t necessarily object, especially if a girl's parents don’t.

These attitudes are changing, but very slowly. Another allegation of sexual assault might change things, and Moore may lose his Senate bid either way: A poll released Sunday found that Moore’s Democratic challenger, Doug Jones, had pulled slightly ahead. But if the Republican does lose, I expect it to be less because Moore’s voters defected from the Republican camp, or were so disgusted they stayed home, and more that national headwinds were favouring Democrats—even in deep-red Alabama.

Moore’s behaviour, however long in the past, illustrates another, more sinister trend in America, though: However much progress the country has made recently in outing abusers, it's been liberals in blue states who seem to be most eagerly cleaning house. We still have a long way to go before many men are held to account for what they have done, and continue to do, to women and girls, in the most conservative pockets of America.

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