Images via Usama's Facebook page A Little Help is Enough

Earlier this month, a man named Usama Ajjan went missing. He was reportedly kidnapped while driving in Aleppo with two other Syrians and three Spanish journalists. Gunmen pulled them over, let the two other Syrians go free, and kidnapped Usama and the three Spaniards: Antonio Pampliega, José Manuel López, and Ángel Sastre.

Their disappearance made international news after a Spanish press federation reported their disappearance. The Spanish foreign ministry has promised to help find them.

But Usama's disappearance didn't make the news, and it continues to be largely ignored by the wider world.

A New York Times article about the kidnapping uses a photo of the Spanish journalists from Usama's Facebook page, but credits the image to "Ahmad Ajjan, via Associated Press" (Ahmad is Usama's brother). It refers to Usama in the article only as "the group's fixer," and does not mention whether he was taken along with the others. It is one of many articles that sports Usama's photos without mentioning his name even once.

Usama is a Syrian schoolteacher, but he seems to have been working as a translator and fixer for the Spanish journalists when they were kidnapped.

And he had been doing some journalism of his own before he was kidnapped. A couple months prior, he'd started submitting photos to an amateur news site about Middle Eastern affairs based out of a small New Zealand city.

Steve Addison runs that website. He found out about Usama's disappearance on Wednesday, as the news about the Spanish journalists was breaking internationally. Since then, he's been running a miniature awareness-raising campaign about Usama from his home in Dunedin. He managed to alert people at Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders to Usama's disappearance, but he's struggled to make any real headway in getting Usama's name into media stories.

Addison is not the most obvious person to be running the campaign. He lives over 9,900 miles away, he doesn't speak Arabic—"I point and smile," he texted me—and it's not like he has heaps of experience with this stuff. He's also never been to Syria—the closest he's gotten is the Jordanian border—and he's never met Usama in person. They know each other exclusively online. But Usama's his friend, he says, and he therefore wants to make sure Usama is included in hostage negotiations, if any ever take place. Besides that, he's not quite sure what else to do.

Usama with a group of school children. Images via Usama's Facebook page A Little Help is Enough

VICE: How did you find out Usama had gone missing?
Steve Addison: I was asked by a friend in common if I had heard from him, because she was worried, she hadn't heard from him in some time. I contacted an acquaintance who had just returned from Aleppo to Australia, and he was able to confirm he had just heard that Usama had gone missing.

When you found out he had gone missing, how did you feel?
Pretty devastated. You know that these things happen in Syria, and particularly in Aleppo. But when it happens, it's still a shock. And I'm concerned about the fact that they let two people go and still bothered to take him. The Spanish journalists have publicity value, and they have financial value. Usama has neither financial nor publicity value. So it worries me in terms of what their intentions may be. Because he doesn't have the value to them that the Spanish journalists do. I suppose [this article] might give him some of that value.

What did you do when you heard the news?
I checked with his brother before I did anything. I said, "You're his brother, do you want me to try to get some publicity, or is it going to hurt?" And his view was, "No, after ten days, it can't hurt. If they were going to let him go, they were going to do it by now. We have to do something different." That's when I started trying to get some awareness of the fact that he was taken along with the Spanish journalists.

I've been in touch with Amnesty International, they've been great, they noted the case through their Syrian office in London, they're aware of it. I've been in contact with Reporters Without Borders, because I think that it's important people know there are four, not three people, who were kidnapped. And it's important that all four come back.

Did it surprise you at that time that international media weren't reporting that he had been with the Spanish journalists?
It does. And it concerns me. Usama is going out of his way to help journalists, he is risking his life through his fundraising, through the awareness work he's involved in. He's as worthy of a mention as foreign people who go to Aleppo to cover what's happening.

So Usama's full-time job is teaching, and he also does fixing and translating for journalists, and some community journalism himself?
The journalism is something that I guess I've tried to engage Usama in. I'd made contact with him through social media. Usama's set up a Facebook page, called A Little Help Is Enough. And he uses it to fundraise, there's quite a network of people on that Facebook site, and quite a few of us will touch base and trade messages through that. Because we all have a common interest in Syria.

Since I've been to Jordan last year and went to some of the refugee camps, we've started a bit of a fledgling website where we aim to give people in conflict zones a voice. And Usama has embraced the concept, and got on board. He's mainly been sending in photos at this stage, to post along with a few words about what's been happening in those photos. So he's been pretty keen on the project, and we've spoken a lot, and it's one of the things that's made it quite devastating, because I feel that I've gotten to know him quite well over the past couple of months. We chat on the WhatsApp app, which seems to be the chosen way of chatting in the Middle East, and keep in pretty regular contact.

What was he fundraising for?
He fundraises for school materials and uniforms and clothing, etc.

What do you know about how his friends and family in Syria are dealing with his kidnapping?
I've seen an awful lot of support on social media for him. His brother seems to be very much taking charge, which is wonderful. I think one of the sad things is that they are all so accustomed to death and disappearance. And I guess what concerns me most is the lack of hope that I see from people in Aleppo who know about his situation. I think we have a naïve hope in the West that things will be okay. And I don't see any sense of optimism from those who know him best, who are living in Syria.

Do you feel weird going into it with that optimism?
It does seem a bit naïve, actually. I think you do what you can, and it's important to document that he is there and what has happened to him. I have every hope that he will be freed, and that he's not being harmed. But it does feel somewhat naïve and optimistic to think that what we're doing in the West could make any difference to what's happening on the ground in Aleppo.

And you've been trying to talk to Spanish media about Usama?
I was contacted by the Spanish media, and put them in touch with his Facebook page, in the hope that he would be included in the story. And they have lifted the photos, they have sourced them to him, and not mentioned him at all, which is pretty disappointing. And I've been quite angry about that.

And you told them, this is someone who was taken along with the Spanish journalists?
That's right, I was very clear.

Has it been frustrating so far trying to talk about Usama in the media?
I've found local media extremely helpful. International media seems to be disinterested in anyone who's not Western.

Amnesty International's London office confirmed that Addison had contacted them. "Our research team has been checking with our Syria contacts to try to find out more information but have no news at this time. We will continue to look into the matter," a spokeswoman said.

In an email to Steve, Reporters Without Borders said it had included Usama's name in a press release, but "Unfortunately, at the time of the writing, we did not know much about him so we only put one sentence."

"Now you that you sent me this useful [information]," the email went on, "I'll make sure to mention him and his work in our next publication or in any contact with people we have."

Follow Carla on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Ian Hamilton had a nomadic childhood. Bath, Devon, Cornwall, Scotland, and even Australia are among the places he's once called home. And wherever he went, video games followed, his personal and professional paths converging to the point where, today, he's a pioneering advocate for making games more accessible for disabled players.

"Games are all kinds of things to me," Hamilton says. "They're a way to experiencing things beyond everyday life: exploring new places, situations and feelings, accomplishment, achievement, teamwork, and competition."

Like many people of his age, Hamilton has played games since his childhood. He began with a Commodore 64 in the mid-1980s, later upgrading to an Atari ST. It was here—playing games like Another World, Populous and The Secret of Monkey Island—when the medium left its biggest impression.

Accessibility options on the CBeebies game 'Something Special'

Inspired, Ian would go on to work as a designer for the BBC's websites and video games. In the latter he did everything from designing characters and user interfaces as well as doing game design and art. This split—working across two industries and in many disciplines—gave Hamilton a valuable perspective that would serve him well in the years ahead.

His future arrived in the form of footage of CBeebies games adapted to be playable with a single key press. Like with Stephen Hawking's PC, motor-impaired children can now use various technological advances—tubes to blow into, buttons on headrests, or infrared blink detectors—to interact with other bits of technology, like computers and consoles. Seeing these children experience this deeply affected Hamilton.

"So what I was seeing in this video footage was young children—three to five years old – with profound motor-impairments, who just a generation ago would have been lying there being cared for," Hamilton remembers. "Now, through a minor advance in technology, they were laughing, playing, doing the same things as their classmates. It was hard not to be amazed and inspired by that, so from that point on I negotiated whatever time I could to work on my own disability-related projects."

Watch VICE's new documentary on legal highs, 'Spice Boys'

As his career advanced, Hamilton oversaw multiple projects, some internal and some from outside the BBC, and he noticed a pattern: "What I kept seeing was well-meaning developers spending huge amounts of time and effort on little bits of polish to help make the game that bit more enjoyable, while—through some trivial design decisions—making it a thoroughly unenjoyable experience for big swathes of players. For example, using red and green to indicate good and bad pick-ups is meaningless for the eight percent of males who can't tell the difference between those colors."

Hamilton wanted to fix this, so he started training people internally and drafting up best practice guidelines. Later, when it came time for the BBC to move to Salford, Hamilton couldn't relocate. He was already working partially for the BBC's accessibility team by this point.

"I loved that aspect of my job, so started to look around for other companies where I could carry on doing the same. What I discovered was that the number of companies I could move to was zero. This was a real shock, as in other industries—such as web or construction—'accessibility specialist' is a standard career path."

Ian at 2014's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco

Hamilton couldn't believe how far behind the games industry was. This sudden realization pushed Hamilton into advocacy work, changing his goal from finding a new job into joining others trying to make a wider difference. He had already seen the implications of lack of awareness, not only the loss of audience but also loss of human benefit, particularly for people who have restricted access to other facets of life

"When it comes to disability, gaming can mean so much more," Hamilton says. "Gaming is used for everything from escapism to empowerment, physiotherapy to simply being able to take part without being judged on anything other than your own merits. What games actually represent is access to culture, recreation and socializing—all essential parts of quality of life. So through being accessible to disabled gamers, gaming can make a profound difference to people's lives."

Robert Kingett is a gamer with disabilities, and the awareness Hamilton and others are raising means so much to him and others. As a child, Kingett used video games for escapism—respite from an alcoholic and abusive mother. Growing up with cerebral palsy, a stutter and partial blindness was difficult enough, but his mother constantly berated him, calling him "lazy fucker" and "retard."

On VICE Sports: Blind Tennis Is Going From Strength to Strength

Video games weren't just an escape for Kingett, though—they were a way to prove that he was better than the words of his intoxicated mother.

He wasn't just playing games; he was picking up their different systems and rule sets. He was learning. "When people usually think of learning, they think of memorizing and repeating facts, but I think learning is taking original concepts and making new ideas or solving puzzles with them," Kingett tells me. "Video games in particular have helped me learn so many things about problem solving. I'm a gamer who firmly believes that gaming can, indeed, make a person smarter."

Still, barriers remain. Kingett hopes that people like Hamilton will raise enough awareness so that things like quick time events become optional as standard, crosshairs on shooting games become adjustable in size, mono sound becomes an option, and environmental audio cues are inserted into more games.

Hamilton is breaking down barriers. Whether consulting with studios, performing accessibility audits, drafting up internal guidelines, organizing events, or speaking at conferences and universities, he's always educating. If you bring up a game design problem related to disability on Twitter, there's a high chance Ian Hamilton will pop up to advise on a solution. It isn't just a job to him—it's a mission to spark lasting cultural change.

Another huge contribution has been Hamilton's work toward establishing accessibility advice and criteria in Global Game Jam, a worldwide event that takes place in January every year, which last year saw over 1,000 developers considering people with disabilities in their games.

He's also advised on government funding in the EU and Australia, helped get industry awards for good practice set up, and contributed to a White House policy briefing. All this when he's not designing color blind modes or handing out advice on how to avoid common epilepsy triggers. Hamilton often offers his expertise while expecting nothing in return, even going as far as leading work on a free online resource for developers, Game Accessibility Guidelines.

This resource means a lot to disabled gamers. Josef Parlock, who suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome—a condition that gives the afflicted chronic pain, joint dislocations, visual problems, and poor mobility—explains: "Ian's work, particularly with Games Accessibility Guidelines, has done so many fantastic things for the gaming scene. It's pushed the discussion of disability in a way that is productive and doesn't erase anybody's disability.

"So often, accessibility in gaming is so reduced: 'Here are re-bindable controls, and here's a color blind mode. Boom, done—every disabled player's sorted forever.' And that's simply not how it is. The guidelines point out the many disabilities that need adaptations made, and it presents them in an easy to digest and difficult to quibble way."

With Parlock's condition, games like Dark Souls that can't be paused or manually saved are a real problem. Sometimes the pain can mean he has to come off at a moment's notice, yet many games just don't consider him—this is mainly down to a lack of awareness, which is what makes Hamilton's work so invaluable.

Related: Meet the Organizers Behind What Might Be the World's First Disabled Orgy

"Gaming is a huge and deeply embedded part of our culture and society," Hamilton says. "It's an industry that's now worth around $80 billion (worldwide), which is a figure pretty close to the total of all recorded entertainment put together. So it's a significant thing to be denied access to, especially when it's just off the back of a trivial design decision, such as which button does which action, or use of red and green for team colors."

Being color blind myself, I know the relief of going into a menu on a competitive shooter like something from the Call of Duty series and seeing the option to turn on a filter to more easily tell allies and enemies apart. I can only imagine the joy felt by a motor-impaired child as they explore a virtual world. Ian Hamilton is helping developers create tools for everyone to experience their games—access ramps to another world.

Follow Kirk on Twitter.

The Port of Montreal, a major point of entry in the international drug trade. Photo via Flickr user Neil Howard

Vito Rizzuto was the Steve Jobs of organized crime. Charismatic, visionary and shrewd enough to run a billion-dollar enterprise with tentacles reaching from Montreal to New York, South America and Europe.

Because of its location along the St-Lawrence river and proximity to US markets, Montreal has always been a major point of entry for drugs, guns and basically whatever else you can fit into a shipping container.

And for the good part of three decades, Rizzuto had his hand in almost every racket in the city, heading a "consortium" of organized crime which included Colombian cartels, Irish gangs who controlled the city's port and Hells Angels who took care of distribution of drugs across Quebec and Ontario.

Rizzuto's death in December 2013—from natural causes—has left many speculating about his replacement and sources we spoke to hinted at a dramatic decline in the Sicilian Mafia's power in Montreal and Canada since his passing.

With the rise of Haitian street gangs, the imminent release of numerous Hells Angels from prison, and rival Italian factions, there is no shortage of conspiracy theories surrounding Vito Rizzuto's replacement. Chief among those theories is that the Ontario-based Calabrian mafia, also known as the 'Ndrangheta, is moving in and getting revenge after having been violently pushed out of the city by Vito's father in the 1970s.

But this line of thinking is deeply flawed, said RCMP Staff Sergeant Chris Knight, because it assumes that Vito Rizzuto can even be replaced.

"No one's got the credibility, no one's got the clout and certainly no one has the charisma that Vito Rizzuto had—and I've met him—to make allies out of enemies. No one has that right now," Knight told VICE.

Knight has been with the RCMP for 34 years and works with local, provincial and international law enforcement to monitor organized crime in Quebec. His squad has seen no sign of rival Italian gangs moving to replace the Rizzuto's, as certain media and observers have speculated.

"We haven't seen attempts or power moves from Hamilton or Toronto on establishments or persons here. And we haven't received any information on the street to that effect either. It's a myth. I've always heard these things about New York and Toronto controlling Montreal but nothing could be further from the truth."

Antonio Nicaso agrees. He has authored 27 books about organized crimes and acted as a consultant for the government on these matters. In his most recent book Business or Blood he writes extensively about the final years of Rizzuto's life and the implications of a post-Vito world.

"I don't see anyone with the same vision as Vito Rizzuto. His mafia was the real one, not a cheap imitation," Nicaso told VICE. "Rather than fighting over turf, they are now trying to create a balance of power where different organizations will work together. So it's a group of people rather than one person like Rizzuto who was a master mediator capable of striking alliances and reaping huge profits through criminal enterprises."

What is certain, for both Knight and Nicaso, is that the Sicilian Mafia no longer wield the power they once did in Canada. All signs point to a decentralization and instability—not a replacement.

"Their monopoly or their stranglehold is not what it used to be. It's greatly diminished. They have lost a lot of power and there have been a lot deaths in the family," said Staff Sgt. Knight.

"You're going to get struggles for street corners like you see in New York. In New York, it's basically whoever has the biggest gun or the most soldiers gets the street corner for the distribution of narcotics and other organized crime activities."

In 2010, Vito Rizzuto's father and his son, both named Nick, were gunned down within months of each other. The murders took place during a period of intense fighting wherein rival Italian factions, namely New York's Bonanno family tried to take advantage of the power vacuum created after Rizzuto's imprisonment in Colorado. He had been deported and was serving time for his involvement in the triple murder of Bonanno family captains in 1981.

FBI surveillance photo of Vito Rizzuto (in black) from 1981, the same year he was involved in a bloody triple murder immortalized in the film Donnie Brasco. Photo via United States Department of Justice

Earlier this month, Raynald Desjardins pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the murder of Sal "the Iron Worker" Montagna. Desjardins was Rizzuto's right-hand man during the golden years of his reign and, according to wiretaps, one of the only two non-Italians to be "made" in the Mafia.

Montagna was the acting head of New York's Bonanno crime family who tried—and failed—to replace Rizzuto as the boss in Montreal. Obviously, their relationship soured and Desjardins' car was showered with AK-47 fire north of Montreal in 2011. Two months later, Montagna's body was found floating in the Assomption River.

Desjardins' case is a salient reminder of just how complex and delicate the balance of power can be for organized crime in Montreal. The city has seen a period of relative calm in recent months but that doesn't mean that it's stable or lasting. Based on the RCMP's analysis, all signs point to splintering drug turf and increased instability.

"It's very volatile on the street. Whereas ten years ago, if there's one thing that Vito Rizzuto had it was the ability to gather people, negotiate truces and make arrangements that everyone made money. With him being gone, it's more volatile now."

Ironically, this volatility is directly linked to the effective police work done by the RCMP who arrested almost 100 suspected mobsters in Project Colisée and pretty much every Hells Angels patch member during Operation Sharqc.

Obviously, these arrests did nothing to curb the demand for drugs and, according to sources who spoke with VICE, all of that demand was absorbed by notoriously unstable Haitian street gangs who are plagued with internal Bloods-Crips rivalries and have effectively replaced the Hells Angels on the street. Sources also pointed to the fact that the notoriously racist Hells Angels will want their old drug turf back and will not be pleased with the fact that black gangs are now in control. There's trouble a'brewing in la métropole.

"The Hells Angels will definitely become more and more important, that goes without saying," said Antonio Nicaso.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Knight agreed. "They're going to want more territory and more cheap drugs and a monopoly over extortion or illegal gambling. There will be conflict for sure. It's all about money and power. And the more players you have, the less you have to go around."

Without Rizzuto's unifying and stabilizing influence, the current period of relative calm is likely to be short-lived. And in order to survive in a post-Vito world, the Sicilian Mafia will have no choice but to rebrand. Unlike stereotypes propagated in the media, the Mafia in Montreal isn't all about guns, drugs and prostitutes—it's actually more boring than that.

Last September, the Charbonneau Commission wrapped up. The inquiry heard testimony from almost 200 witnesses and exposed a massive criminal conspiracy involving the mob, construction companies, unions and high-ranking municipal employees—a reminder that crime in Montreal was able to fester in an environment of political collusion.

In fact, the findings of the Commission led to the resignation of mayor Gerald Tremblay and to the arrests of Laval's former mayor and Montreal's interim mayor on gangsterism and corruption charges, respectively (all of which makes Rob Ford seem pretty benign, Toronto).

"The Mafia is strong and powerful is because they were capable of infiltrating our society and our politicians. What they used to do with the gun, they now do with corruption, relationships and contracts," Antonio Nicaso said.

"They are not as strong and powerful anymore mainly because they are not able to replace Vito Rizzuto but without connections to those who hold the power and money, the Mafia would just be a bunch of hooligans."

Follow Nick Rose on Twitter.

A market stall selling jeans in La Salada. All photos by Sarah Pabst

La Salada is Argentina's largest informal—and arguably illegal—textile fair. Bolivian immigrants flock to it in the hopes of finding employment, and making fast money. But the reality is many will end up employed in the Buenos Aires sweatshop slums where the clothes are produced.

German photographer Sarah Pabst worked with sociologist Matías Dewey to understand the lives and jobs of the people working in La Salada and the sweatshops. She spoke to VICE about her experience of the intersection between photography and sociology.

VICE: What was your first contact with La Salada?
Sarah Pabst: My first contact was in Germany where I met the Argentinian sociologist I did the project with. He said it would be really nice to make the story more accessible for other people through photography, and that's how I started taking the photos.

For you, what's the connection between sociology and photography?
I think both disciplines have a similar approach. We both wanted to tell people's stories, how hard they work, and how much they want to improve the future for their sons and daughters. None of us wanted to only show poverty despite it being so present in the surroundings. You can easily show the typical Latin American picture of people suffocating in poverty through a Western lens, but we didn't want to talk about this.

A lot of the poorest people working in the sweatshops and in La Salada are Bolivian. Why is there so much immigration from Bolivia to La Salada?
They think it's the American dream, because you can get rich really fast. Everyone you talk to has big hopes to make a living, Bolivia is very poor. Buenos Aires seems like the "big city" that you dream of going to and making a living, but in reality it's not as easy as that.

A Bolivian woman breastfeeds her child while working in a stall

Who comes to the fair to buy these clothes?
La Salada became a fair for people who can't afford to buy really expensive clothes. It is a huge textile market for those who want to wear copies of expensive designs. Most of the people who go to the fair are sellers that come from all over the country in buses to buy for their shops. And everything is paid in cash, so you can imagine how much money is moving every day.

So it's very much a product of the fashion market?
Yes, whatever is in fashion is what everybody makes and sells, and then the market saturates and people have to reinvent themselves. There was a time in which print T-shirts with bling were the hit, so someone made them and they got a lot of money. Then everybody made them and that was it.

Many of the clothes produced are knockoffs of designer brands.

The stalls and the factories that supply them are huge operations. Is there a lot of security?
The security is established through the criminal underworld. So each market has its own security, which controls everything so people pay their rents and don't steal. There is loads of money going to the police for every fake brand. In some of the markets, the security is highly armed.

How did you get access?
We talked with the owners of the markets. It is very typical for underworld guys to be very charming and welcoming. They invited us to a Bolivian festival, made us their guests, and showed us around.

Interview by Laura Rodriguez Castro, follow her on Twitter.

A skyscraper reflected in another skyscraper. Photo via Tez Goodyer

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Oh, wicked! Turns out London—England's capital city, a city of dust and pigeons and bus drivers loudly shouting "Oi!" at cyclists, a city of pomp and ceremony and extreme poverty and infinite pop-up restaurants, restaurants with residencies shorter than most flashmobs, if you remember those—is the number one destination for the world's second citizenship-seeking millionaires.

Let's just chew through the meat of this before we suck on the bones of the inevitable despair it will inspire: This is all according to a survey published this month that was conducted by wealth analysts New World Wealth and resettlement advisors Lio Global. Quite a lot of horrible shit in that sentence to hurdle over, is their not? "Wealth analysts," for when you have so much wealth you need to analyze it. "Resettlement advisors," for when you're so rich you can't move without a man in a suit charging you £100,000 [$155,000] to tell you where to go. And then, without irony, the company name "New World Wealth," an Illuminati reference so blatant it would be chucked out of an especially rough Yates's for being too aggressively flirtatious.

On NOISEY: This Vigilant Christian Has Served the Hottest Possible Take on Rihanna's "BBHMM"

Anyway, the study tracked various high net-worth individuals (HNWIs) between 2000 and 2014 and gathered info on where they moved to and from, and found London was their primary destination. Sixty-one thousand HNWIs migrated from India in that time, with the majority going to the UK (and, by extension, London—I mean no disrespect, but if you're an international millionaire you're not going to move across the world to settle in Bracknell, are you?) Eight thousand South African millionaires emigrated in the same time period, again mainly to London. All in all, 125,000 millionaires moved to the UK in the first 14 post-millennial years, proving that a) it's easy to move here if you're rich and b) it's easy to buy property here, again if you are rich. Millionaires also moved to the US, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, and the UAE, but mainly London, because of all the manners and tax breaks and those little bikes you can hire outside Tube stations.

"The main reason people apply for a second residence or citizenship is to ensure freedom of global mobility and access, as well as security and wealth protection for their families," someone from Lio Global fucking barfed out of their awful mouth. "The majority of investors are typically looking towards the EU." They also gargled up some other garbage in between legitimately eating caviar and thinking champagne tastes good. This stuff is hard to read without getting both mad and bored at the same time, a curious compound emotion where you're angry but also wracked with a kind of chronic exhaustion, a deep-in-your-bones tiredness that—one assumes—you also feel before death, as life's inviolable miseries slash into you with their thousand little knives.

Related: Watch VICE's documentary about the London property situation, 'Regeneration Game'

And so a vision of the future:

It is 2020, now. London is just a bunch of Lamborghinis slowly ramming into each other up and down the length and breadth of Oxford Street, gigantic Trump Towers-esque skyscrapers blot out the sun. We—the peons, the scum, the tax-paying, the vermin—have all been forcibly decamped to Leeds, since rebranded "Second London." The Queen's been moved on to Peterborough after being deemed too poor. Boris Johnson is still there, of course, in a crown now, his head deflated more into his Humpty Dumpty-esque body than ever before, tapdancing on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square—since tiled entirely with diamonds—while millionaires clap.

Gary Barlow is still there too, more waistcoat than man now, solemnly hitting a piano pedal with his big foot and playing millionaire-friendly ballads. A jump jet lands on top of Buckingham Palace. It is will.i.am, who is still trying to happen, welcoming a fresh batch of millionaires to the golden city.

"We have rooftop bars," will.i.am is saying, through the app-and-iPhone combination he replaced his voicebox with in 2018. "Flats in Canary Wharf start at £2M."

Peter Stringfellow welcomes the South African millionaires to Angels, where they are all administered grave and perfunctory £100,000 [$155,000] handjobs before David Cameron presents them all with British passports and MBEs. And slowly, without knowing it, every spark of life has slowly been strangled out of the city. London is little more than an endless matinee of We Will Rock You. It's basically just Victoria station, since Victoria station has grown huge and boundless and takes over most of the south-west of the city. It's an endless labyrinthine of Prets, where someone has built another Shard on top of the Shard, and nobody uses the Tube any more because they all have helicopters. And in west London, there is a street paved with literal gold on which recent graduates, rendered desperate by their poverty, are ceremonially killed in exchange for their family receiving a one-off payment of £800 [$1,240].

Anyway, London is dying. Millionaires are killing it. Come. Friendly. Bombs.

Follow Joel Golby on Twitter.

Paul Walker's death saddened Fast and Furious fans all around the world, and Québec was no exception. In the small city of Saint-Eustache, a revved-up car rally was held in honour of the fallen star, much to the chagrin of the local cops. VICE was on location.

They're not happy. Photo via Flickr user Kev Chapman

Move over, Viagra™, there's a fleshy old boner-maker in town.

In a predictably controversial move last month, the Fur Institute of Canada commissioned a proposal for the Federal Fisheries Department aimed at, among other things, the creation of new and viable markets for seal penises in Asia. It's an attempt to capitalize on the long-held belief that animal penises are a natural enhancer of male virility.

The plan, which would call for the killing of nearly 140,000 grey seals over a span of five years, would see a Canadian investment of nearly $9 million during that period. The program is intended to create new markets throughout Asia for the sale of seal pelts, oils, meats, and, most importantly, cocks. Which inevitably prompts us to ask: Do Asian countries really want all those seal dicks, anyway?

Fortunately for enthusiasts of writing about seal dicks, the answer appears to be yes.

China in particular is not only home to a chain of restaurants featuring animal-penis-based main courses, but it is also a thriving hotbed of black-market activity where consumers can illegally purchase dicks from a variety of animals.

It's also the country where seal penises established their magical strength-enhancing qualities: During the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Chinese competitors were discovered taking Dalishen Oral Liquid, a since discontinued brand of oil capsules containing pressed and ground seal penises and testicles.

The desire of Canadian fisheries to serve Asian countries and communities a hearty helping of dicks appears to fly in the face of the long-held notion that seal hunting equates to viciously killing baby seals. The newly proposed hunting guidelines would ensure to prospective markets that their imports are a product of "humane harvesting," as opposed to the head-smashing seal-clubbing of the past.

Baby seals, traditionally hunted for their pure white pelts, would no longer be sought out by hunters, simply because their junk hasn't matured enough to prove their worth in the penis market. This would mean hunters would be seeking out larger, more fully-grown grey seals and, after the seals were killed (with the use of guns, not clubs), their pelt, meat and four- to seven-inch members (depending on whether or not it was a lucky seal) would be duly separated and sold.

This little lady is very lucky compared to her male counterparts. You go, girl. Photo via Flickr user Northwest Power and Conservation Council

When asked about the proposal by VICE, Dion Dakins, chairman of the Fur Institute of Canada and CEO of Carino Processing, was hesitant to talk about seal penises, focusing instead on the potential of the seal as a whole.

"The various commodities of seals are in demand in numerous places, and there's opportunities for all exports," said Dakins. "We're in a position in history where protein [as well as Omega 3s, a key component of seal fat] has never been in higher demand or higher value. Textiles are perfectly adequate. What hasn't been adequate is the way that animal rights groups [react to the hunt]—they're not welfare groups, the International Fund for Animal Welfare [IFAW] has no interests in improving the welfare aspects of the hunt."

In classic pro/con fashion, director of the IFAW Sheryl Fink believes that, as well as being a waste of taxpayers' money, the hunt as a whole is pretty much bullshit.

"The whole idea that our government would be promoting consumption of penises to improve virility when there's... I mean there's no evidence that [it] works," said Fink. "It's pretty shocking. It's the same philosophy of those people who consume rhinoceros horn, or tiger bone...we've seen what happens to wildlife when we go down this road.

"There's never been a market for the meat, there's never been a market for the fur, and now they're turning to the penis as virtually the only part of the animal that they can find a market for."

Reinvigorating the seal hunt could prove to be a small economic success—particularly in Newfoundland, as seal populations along the province's west coast make up 70 percent of the entire St. Lawrence Gulf seal population. Let's say that the FIC's proposed "reinvigoration" of the hunt was successful, and Canadian hunters could now find markets to sell seal goods.

The FIC's commissioned proposal believes that, in its first year, a reinvigorated harvest could draw in upwards of $4 million for 70,000 seals—an enticing pay bump from 2010, where sealers barely scraped together $1.3 million worth of goods.

And here's where the dicks come in. During the prime of overall seal value in 1996, the sale of seal penises accumulated to nearly 9.6 percent of all seal product sales—a percentage that, barring the de-valuation of cocks, almost $385,000 of that $4 million revenue could be generated by seal penis alone.

The increased demand of seal goods could create jobs not only in the sealing industry, but subsequently in the fisheries of Newfoundland, where fishermen have for years complained that seals were responsible for eating all of the fish considered to be of any worth.

For Dakins, the true challenge seems to be the historically damning public image of the seal hunt getting in the way of potential opportunities for fisherman, sealers, and businesses to prosper.

"[Sealing is] no different from the harvest of any animal around the world. It's not different to raising cattle, pigs, chickens, for our consumption. It's a perfect, edible, non-edible producer of products. No matter what way you look at it, seals are going to have to be hunted to maintain viable fisheries. That's it."

Follow Josh Fumo on Twitter.

Ever since MH370 vanished and AirAsia crashed into the sea and Andreas Lubitz scattered Germanwings flight 9525 over the French Alps, I've felt in my bones that—science and logic aside—planes don't work. They simply run on luck. And of all the problems with flying, turbulence is the worst. There's a special type of helplessness induced by a rattling plane, and especially when you don't know why it's rattling. So in order for me to relax on flights, I asked some pilots to explain turbulence.

"Turbulence isn't something to be feared," says Keith Tonkin, who is a former military pilot and director of consultancy group Aviation Projects. "Modern planes are designed to withstand far more force than turbulence can create. They're simply not going to fall apart." He adds that military planes routinely fly into cyclones to take meteorological readings, just to underline how robust they are.

Construction aside, I want to know if turbulence can jolt a plane out of the sky. I remind Tonkin that in November 2001, American Airlines Flight 587 crashed after takeoff from JFK Airport in New York, killing all 260 people on board, along with five on the ground. And the reason? It took off behind another plane, and was brought down by the turbulence in the plane's wake.

But as Tonkin assures me, the problem was that Flight 587 took off too soon. As he points out, human error is the most common reason planes go down, whereas meteorological turbulence is more of a hassle than a danger. "We avoid turbulence because it's stressful for passengers," he says, "but for pilots it's just not an issue."

Turbulence comes in three main categories: thermal, mechanical, and shear. Essentially, all three are small-scale versions of actions you'll have seen in flowing water. Warm air rises, in much the same way as water billows up from the deep. This is called thermal turbulence, and you experience it as a bump as you ram a jet through a rising plume at 500 mph. If you've ever flown through afternoon clouds at takeoff, you'll have probably experienced thermal turbulence.

Then there's mechanical turbulence, which occurs when physical structures such as mountains and buildings disrupt wind currents, much like a boulder causes ripples in a moving stream. This is dangerous, but very easy to predict and pilots simply avoid flying near big structures at low altitudes.

A compilation of planes hitting shear turbulence while landing

The last type is shear turbulence, which basically describes the border between two pockets of conversely moving air. This is the scary one because you often can't predict how bad it'll be, such as the case when the pilot flies a plane in and out of a jet stream.

A jet stream, like a freeway of air, is a band of wind gushing through the upper atmosphere. To minimize fuel consumption, pilots often jump into these streams to get a tail wind. You might have been half asleep to hear the seatbelt light ding on, informing you the pilot is about to move in or out of a jet stream. Usually at this point the pilot will know what to expect, as another plane will have logged the severity of the turbulence over the transitional zone.

Turbulence is recorded and shared across planes according to a rating system. Light turbulence describes a movement of a foot or two, and rattles the drink tray. Moderate turbulence is the point at which air hostesses strap themselves in. Severe turbulence will launch unsecured objects, including people, although most pilots only encounter severe turbulence a few times in a whole career. But extreme turbulence is really the sum of all fears. It this case, a plane can drop or ascend 100 feet in a few seconds, and unbuckled passengers have been killed rattling around the walls. As the US Federal Aviation Administration reports, "From 1980 through 2008, US air carriers had 234 turbulence accidents, resulting in 298 serious injuries and three fatalities."

2013 was the safest year on record, while 2014 wasn't all that far behind.

Ron Bartsch is the chairman of AvLaw Consulting, and the former head of safety at Qantas. He says that extreme turbulence is extremely rare although he was unlucky enough to once hit a patch. "I remember flying a little twin seater, back into Sydney over the Blue Mountains." He said. "There were storms and some mechanical turbulence over the mountains and I was flying fairly low, only around 10,000 feet." He describes hitting a sudden wall of air that ripped him skywards, to where there was a lot less oxygen. "The plane was unpressurised and I was terrified I'd black out. I had the nose down the whole time but jumped from 10,000 feet to 12,000 feet. It's moments like that you really earn your wage as a pilot."

This is an example of why commercial pilots will go to some lengths to avoid turbulence. A commercial airline would never approach mountains at 10,000 feet and will always fly around thunderstorms rather than go through them. And again, it's not because planes can't withstand these conditions, but because the average passenger won't understand what's happening. To both Keith and Ron, hitting turbulence seems to be a bit like hitting a pothole. It draws unwanted attention to the driver, but it doesn't cause problems.

"It seemed like a lot of planes went down last year," says Ron Bartsch, addressing my essential problem with planes. "But that's more perception than reality. 2013 was the safest year on record, while 2014 wasn't all that far behind." He also points out that last year's high-profile crashes were unprecedented, and none were the result of air turbulence. And then he tells me to look at some numbers.

Three billion people flew in 2014, with 692 commercial fatalities. With numbers like that, you've got a better chance of winning the lottery than dying in a crash.

Follow Julian on Twitter.

Scorpion from 'Mortal Kombat X,' via Xbox

More fighting games coverage on VICE Gaming:
That Time Jamie Lee Curtis Dressed as Vega, and Other EVO 2015 Stories
What Do Ridiculously Good 'Street Fighter' Players Make of the Fifth Game?
How to Avoid Being Shit at 'Super Smash Bros.'

Pause a moment to consider what the biggest video games of right now are. Not games that have come out this year, necessarily; but ones that people are playing the most, talking about, loving. There's Grand Theft Auto V, of course, still—and rightly so, because that game's amazing. Batman: Arkham Knight's been everywhere, partly because it's incredible in places and partly because its PC version was such a broken mess. And then there's Minecraft. I think there will always be Minecraft.

So the best-selling game of 2015 so far, across all formats, might come as a surprise to you—I know it has me. Fortune reports that it's the gory fighter Mortal Kombat X that leads the sales chart with almost seven full months of the year behind us. It's a good game, definitely, a much-improved iteration of the long-running series that right now does offer more than raw bloody thrills. But I had assumed, wrongly, that Mortal Kombat X's audience was core fighting fans, rather than a more casual crowd. The sales say otherwise.

Mortal Kombat X came out in April, which has given it a few months to tick over at the tills. Perhaps the most impressively performing game in the global top ten, then, is Arkham Knight, which despite being restricted (essentially) to console sales only, and having just come out at the end of June, is placed at six. Factor in the fact that this chart is based on sales up to the end of June, discounting July's numbers, and that's even more amazing. Celebrate by watching this Batmobile fail.

Personally, it's great to see The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt doing so well, too. It's my game of the year, by which I mean I'm going to be playing it right through to Christmas. Super Smash Bros. is the only Nintendo title to feature, but shout out to the Wii U-exclusive Splatoon for selling a million copies already.

Here's the top ten best-selling video games of 2015 so far in full:

1 Mortal Kombat X
2 Grand Theft Auto V
3 Battlefield Hardline
4 Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
5 Minecraft
6 Batman: Arkham Knight
7 Dying Light
8 NBA 2K15
9 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
10 Super Smash Bros.

Follow Mike Diver on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user Jorge Figueroa

There's never been a better time to be a gamer.

Breathtaking big-budget blockbuster games are released regularly, ensuring we're never without a new world to explore or adventure to embark on. In the first half of 2015 alone we've soaked in the massive environments of Bloodborne, The Witcher 3, and Batman: Arkham Knight.

Indie games are also more prominent than they ever have been. The likes of Her Story, Thomas Was Alone, Spelunky, and countless others have gained fanbases that would have been unthinkable at the start of the millennium (and, of course, there's no better example of this than Minecraft).

There are more games than ever, too. We now live in a world in which, on a daily basis, countless new games are made available to us, some costing absolutely nothing. And thanks to digital distribution, we can have them in our hands in a matter of minutes. Bored with one game? Just download another.

And yet there are some gamers who are unhappy with the way things are going. Some who feel the definition of that very title—gamer—is being challenged, and they don't like it.

To some, you aren't a gamer unless you're playing a traditional console or PC game: a first-person shooter, an RPG, a 3D platformer. If you're the sort who only plays mobile games or are addicted to Pirate Kings on Facebook, you apparently don't count as a gamer.

It's worse if you're female. Since the late 1980s the term gamer has been mainly associated with males aged between 15 and 30. The term "girl gamer" has done nothing to help this, pushing the idea that a woman taking part in a traditionally male-dominated pastime should be considered an exception, with their own special term to point that out.

Because of all this, the idea of a businesswoman playing Candy Crush Saga on the train to work is about as far from the definition of a gamer as some can imagine.

If you played 'Candy Crush Saga' on your way to work this morning, you're a gamer. Image via YouTube

Of course, these people are wrong. Everyone who enjoys playing games, regardless of format or genre or budget, is a gamer. Your little brother's love for Pokémon makes him a gamer. Your grandma's regular Wii Sports tennis matches make her a gamer. Your dad's Football Manager addiction and your mom's infuriating ability to hammer you at Tetris (well, mine does) makes them both gamers.

I remember a time when it wasn't like this—or, at least, when nobody admitted and embraced it. When I was young, I was a massive gamer, regularly running home from school every day to play on my NES, SNES, or Mega Drive. I had a few friends who also played games, but they were all boys.

The girls in my school never spoke about games. My parents never spoke about them. They were barely mentioned on TV, except when the fantastic GamesMaster—the prime-time UK show that gave gaming some sort of legitimacy—was on.

Related: Watch VICE's documentary on The Mystical Universe of 'Magic: The Gathering'

It's not like girls or adults didn't play games at the time. My cousin had an NES, too, and she'd swap games with me regularly: I'd give her Super Mario Bros., she'd give me Zelda II. And many's a night I'd sneak downstairs to find my dad playing Desert Strike on my Mega Drive.

Back then it was almost as if playing video games was something to be ashamed of if you weren't a schoolboy. If you knew of a girl playing games it was a big deal, and if you knew of an adult playing them it was even bigger.

These days that stigma no longer exists, certainly not to the extent it did 20 or more years ago. People of every age and gender play games these days—so why do some people see this as a bad thing?

If you ever played and loved 'Wii Sports' with your family at Christmas, you're a gamer image via YouTube

It may be because for newer generations of gamers, gaming has had far fewer negative connotations. The PlayStation era made console gaming cool among 20-something men, ensuring it was no longer something you had to outgrow when you were no longer a child.

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, gamers my age who remember the NES and SNES days also remember what it felt like to wish our hobby could be considered legitimate by the rest of society who thought it was just for kids: a struggle the PlayStation generation never had.

For years, 80s babies got our console games at Christmas and quietly went to our rooms, loving our new presents, but secretly wishing the rest of the family cared enough to join in.

One of the greatest gaming moments in my life was when my family played Wii Sports' tennis at Christmas 2006. Yes, it was basic. And yes, as a "proper" gamer, I knew that the controls were limited at best. But seeing my parents enjoying something I'd loved alone all my life was a beautiful thing.

If your mom ever thrashed you at 'Tetris' on the Game Boy (or whatever), she's a gamer. Image via YouTube

There are some who believe the Wii was the beginning of the problem, that it was Nintendo's attempt to embrace a new demographic of so-called-casual non-gamers that warped the landscape of the games industry and brought about an onslaught of party, brain-training, and fitness games. They believe this growth in casual gaming in turn led to the growth of mobile gaming and the evil of free-to-play.

Two things spring to mind. The first, frankly, is shush. Not only are the fears from some self-proclaimed gamers that their precious hobby is being taken from them by dreaded women and casuals completely unfounded, they're single-minded and annoying to gamers like me who are adamant of one thing: they don't speak for us.

Secondly, many of them fail to realize that the casual games they feel are harming the industry are actually helping fund the "hardcore" games they love so much. A good triple-A video game these days can cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, market, and release, and as systems get more powerful these costs only rise and rise. Some of these costs can be covered with stuff like downloadable extra content (DLC), but there's another way to fund them: by making smaller, less expensive games that appeal to a wider audience.

Over on Motherboard, which also covers these video game things: Watch some guy play 'Half-Life' on their smartwatch, because

Take major developer and publisher Electronic Arts A for example. Upcoming games like Star Wars: Battlefront, Need For Speed, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, and Mass Effect: Andromeda won't be cheap to make: far from it. But then you've got EA's mobile department, which releases smaller games that are much cheaper to make, appeal to a larger audience, and raise tons of money that the company can pump into its more expensive games.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out is a fairly basic city simulation game, but by the start of 2014 it had earned EA over $130 million in revenue. That's enough to make three or four triple-A console games.

Similarly, it could be argued that had Nintendo not struck gold with Wii Sports (82 million copies sold), the first two Brain Training games (33 million combined) or Wii Fit (22 million), it would have been in massive financial difficulty. Best-case scenario, they wouldn't have had the money to fund "core" games sure to sell in smaller quantities (like Pikmin 3, Fire Emblem: Awakening, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, or Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon). Worst case scenario? Well, look what happened to SEGA.

If you fell in love with 'Pikmin 3' when you got your Wii U, you're a gamer. Image via Nintendo

What many people seem to be forgetting is that things are actually coming full circle: the growth of casual and female gamers in the market doesn't mean they're "taking over" gaming, it means they're coming back to it. After all, if you moan to me about a simple, casual game that people of all ages, genders, and skill levels play, I'll show you news reports from 1980 when Pac-Man was released and men, women, and children were packing arcades in their droves.

Had someone told me when I was a kid that one day everyone would play games—that one day boys, girls, adults, everyone would not only be gamers but openly discuss the games they played and not hide what they were doing for fear they seemed nerdy—I would have been delighted.

The term gamer no longer means what the hardcore wants it to mean. Everyone is a gamer now: from the teenage boy who takes part in epic ten-hour Battlefield sessions, to the businesswoman who's a level 70 paladin in World of Warcraft, to the aunt who plays Pokémon Y so she can trade with her nephew who plays Pokémon X, to the guy on the train who just wants a quick game of Angry Birds before he gets to work.

We're all gamers. Embrace it.

Follow Chris Scullion on Twitter.

Photo by SPSmiler via

Read: How Much Does a Gruesome Murder Affect the Price of a House?

A former detective has claimed that Scotland Yard covered up the crimes of a serial killer who told police officers he had murdered 18 people during the 1970s by pushing them in front of Tube trains.

In his book, The London Underground Serial Killer, 60-year-old Geoff Platt writes that a man named Kiernan Kelly was arrested for drunk and disorderly behavior in 1984, before murdering his cellmate, William Boyd.

It was during the questioning about this incident, alleges Platt, that Kelly admitted to the London Underground killings. These deaths were reported as suicides, he claims, partly because the police wanted to avoid causing panic, and also because they didn't want it known that they had allowed 18 murders on the Tube to go unnoticed.

"Think about it—the police don't want it getting out; there would be mass panic," he told the Daily Star. "They didn't want people knowing a serial killer got away with pushing innocent people onto the tracks—they'd be afraid it could happen again."

A British Transport spokesman said that due to the amount of time since the crimes were alleged to have occurred, they would "prove difficult to substantiate without further evidence."

Photo by Jake Lewis

Read: An Area of England Has Basically Just Decriminalized Weed

In excellent news for the salted snacks industry, a petition to legalize cannabis in the UK on Parliament's website has garnered over 150,000 signatures, which makes it very likely that it will be debated in the House of Commons.

The petition, which urges the government to "Make the production, sale, and use of cannabis legal," argues that legalization could potentially "bring in £900 million [$1.4 billion] in taxes every year, save £400 million [$623 million] on policing cannabis and create over 10,000 new jobs."

It reminds us that cannabis was only outlawed in the UK in 1925, and the stoner adage of "It's safer than alcohol"—a phrase you may have seen on your ballot paper at the last election—is also present. Its success means MPs will consider debating the move in September.

Read: Is Legalizing Marijuana Going to Make Americans Stupid?

The revision of British laws has been in the news plenty of late, with the recent Psychoactive Substances bill coming under heavy criticism from all corners, even the House of Lords (though this perhaps seems less surprising given revelations in this weekend's tabloids). Last week, a police and crime commissioner in Durham, North East England added to the decriminalization argument by basically giving smokers the green light to grow their own weed, as long as they aren't "too blatant" about it.

When will Parliament realize the British people just want to get high, eat a big crisp sandwich, and watch those funny GI Joe PSAs well into the night? Hopefully this petition will go some distance to making that penny drop.

Not saying this lot have taken anything—we took this photo at an ecstasy-legalization "loophole party" in Dublin that time Ireland accidentally made pingers legal, so this is just a bunch of people doing their best impression of a gurn. Photo by Sarah Elizabeth Meyler

Not many young British people have acid to thank for their first narcotic experience. One of the original counterculture drugs of the 1960s and 70s, for a while it seemed that—in this modern age of myriad highs and limited downtime—LSD was going the way of the dodo. Over the past 15 or so years, it seemed to have become a bit of a relic: increasingly hard to get hold of, unless you had a load of mates into progressive trance or DIY drug synthesis.

However, last week, statistics from the Crime Survey of England and Wales showed that LSD has experienced a U-turn, just as it was about to sail off the edge of the known world. Also revealed was a surge in the popularity of ecstasy, with use nearly doubling over the past couple of years—though this was perhaps less surprising than quite how many people are tripping in 2015, bringing LSD back from the brink of relative obscurity.

The main group of people giving acid the kiss of life are those from the younger end of the millennial generation. According to the survey, in the last two years, the number of 16- to 24-year-olds taking LSD has jumped threefold, from 0.4 percent in 2012–13 to 1.2 per cent in 2014–15, returning to the levels of 15 years ago.

So what's behind this psychedelic renaissance?

One of the first drivers of drug trends is supply. After its fall in popularity, getting hold of trustworthy LSD wasn't easy. But a couple of years ago, it seemed that more of the stuff—at higher purity levels—was finally making its way back to the British market through the traditional channels; in 2012–13, law enforcement seized 3,000 doses of LSD, rising to 5,000 doses in 2013–14.

A vendor selling LSD on the now defunct dark web marketplace Silk Road

However, the supply of LSD and other copycat hallucinogens has been revolutionized by one thing more than any other: the dark web.

This year's Global Drug Survey found that online drug markets were a popular place to go for people seeking LSD, as they allow consumers to source from all over the world, rather than just off some man parked up outside their local Currys. And although young people don't often get their drugs directly over the internet—a fact backed up by the government's drug use statistics—many of their suppliers do, in bulk, and these sites make it far easier for them to buy in stock that they can then sell on to existing customers IRL.

Another factor in the apparent rise of LSD use might not actually be down to LSD whatsoever. People who prefer to trip on the right side of the law are buying a legal LSD hybrid, 1P-LSD, which popped up on the dark web in January of this year, hours after AL-LAD, another LSD substitute, was banned. A minute chemical tweak away from the real thing, 1P-LSD is one of the most effective psychoactive doppelgängers on the market: most users cannot tell the difference between the analogue and LSD, which may have led some to report what it is they've taken as genuine lysergic acid diethylamide.

Another factor might be the price. Individually, LSD sells for around £8 [$12.50] a trip, with its hybrids half the price—though that cost tumbles the more you buy. Lasting far longer than your average amphetamine, it's a relatively cheap drug in times of austerity.

Bleak times call for colorful drugs—substances that can provide more of an escape than mechanical, real-world mixers such as cocaine and alcohol. So maybe it's no coincidence that the government's drug use statistics revealed that ecstasy use among 16- to 24-year-olds has nearly doubled over the last two years, to levels not seen since 2003. This is likely down to increased purity, with ecstasy pills and powder now containing high levels of MDMA, and therefore increased euphoric and empathogenic effects on the user—the kind of feelings that keep you coming back.

Ecstasy, so it happens, was the drug people turned to over the last period of Tory rule. "At the height of the 80s' go-for-it, go-it-alone enterprise boom, ecstasy catalyzed an explosion of suppressed social energies," wrote the music journalist Simon Reynolds in 1998. "Raves' values—collectivity, spirituality, the joy of losing yourself in the crowd—were literally counter to the dominant culture. Ecstasy's empathy- and intimacy-inducing effects didn't just offer a timely corrective to Thatcher-sponsored social atomization; the drug was also the remedy for the English diseases of class-consciousness and emotional reserve."

Politics is one thing, but a more likely catalyst for the surge in ecstasy is the renewed popularity of dance music, after a time in the 2000s when hip-hop and indie dominated the UK charts. Because with more interest in dance music comes more interest in club nights, and with an interest in club nights comes an interest in something that's going to keep you dancing all night. Bear in mind this kind of thing is taking place in university cities as previously drug-illiterate as Durham, and you'll start to understand why the number of British ecstasy users might have risen.

TRENDING ON VICE SPORTS: The End of Hulk Hogan

As a whole, there seems to be more of a psychedelic current running through British youth culture than during any other period in recent memory. Established last year by a group of young academics to bring together "people fascinated by and appreciative of psychedelic substances," the Psychedelic Society says its word-of-mouth events around the UK are attended by hundreds of people, mainly in their twenties.

Furthermore, festivals such as Secret Garden Party, Body and Soul, and Shambala (the first to accept Bitcoin as payment for tickets) are taking on a psychedelic hue. This year, Secret Garden Party ran a new stage, the Psychedelia Smithsonian, "a sonic tribute to LSD in all its musical forms, where you [could] expect San Francisco-inspired flower power, tripped-out electronica and blissed-out ambient beats aplenty."

Last year, the festival—which has an emphasis on more LSD-friendly daytime events—featured a talk by psychedelic scientist Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, a researcher at Imperial College London, who gained a cult following among some young LSD users after touring universities last year.

Don't want to jump on the bandwagon? Bigger fan of taking horrible new legal highs, are you? Then you might enjoy our film 'Spice Boys', about some Manchester users who've got addicted to over-the-counter substances:

I spoke to Andy Roberts, author of Albion Dreaming: A Popular History of LSD in Britain, to ask for his opinion on why LSD and other psychedelics are experiencing a surge in popularity among the young.

"Acid fell out of favor in the 1980s with the rise of MDMA," he said. "Young people wanted easy drugs, ones you could dance or hang out or go to pubs with, and which only gave loved-up sensations, with little or no hangover. For many, acid was too hard for them emotionally; too difficult to control."

From the early 2000s, however, a rise of anti-consumerist ideals brought with it a revived interest in LSD—with Roberts pointing out that "acid [can be] the best tool available to de-program one from the straight world." Psychiatrists revisited the work done on acid in the 1950s, and better quality LSD began to appear. In 2011, the world's largest psychedelic conference, Breaking Convention, became a bi-yearly event, bringing over 800 likeminded people together to talk seriously about the many uses of acid and other psychedelic drugs.

"There is now a more coherent psychedelic culture in the UK than there has ever been," said Roberts. "Psychedelic societies are springing up all over the UK, and with all the above it is much easier for people to access the LSD experience, and to find likeminded people who can support them in 'learning the ropes' so they can have safe, life-changing experiences that help them see the everyday world as being the truly miraculous, second-by-second event that it is."

Follow Max on Twitter.