Photo via Flickr user tanjila ahmed

A Vancouver weed dispensary has become one of the first in the country to receive a business licence, which was issued by the municipal government this week.

The Wealth Shop, set to open in the Point Grey neighbourhood, has met all the city's requirements to operate as an above board business in Vancouver and was given its business licence Monday.

Speaking to the Vancouver Courier, chief licensing inspector Andreea Toma said the news affirms the city's commitment to regulating dispensaries. She said The Wealth Shop owners have signed a good neighbour agreement that indicates they're responsible for abiding by the city's standards.

"If anything that they do doesn't meet our current regulations, we will bring them back in and have a chat with them. The good neighbour agreement signed yesterday clearly indicated that, and they were all willing to sign it," Toma said.

The Wealth Shop, which will sell dried cannabis, extracts, and tinctures, describes itself online as the "first medicinal dispensary in Vancouver to partner with a wide range of health and wellness experts." Those experts include naturopaths, nutritionists, and fitness trainers, the store claims.

"What we're really excited for is to be able to provide care and wellness to those who need it," said one of shop's founders, who, somewhat ironically, didn't want to be named because of concerns about the flux state of the industry. He told VICE the store is committed to playing by the city's rules.

Last summer, Vancouver approved regulations requiring dispensaries to pay $30,000 for business licences (with the exception of compassion clubs), and to be located at least 300 metres from schools and community centres. It's the first city in Canada to come up with a regulating scheme, prompted by the influx of around 200 dispensaries.

Of 176 Vancouver dispensaries that applied for a licence, only a dozen or so are expected to get full approval. In the past few weeks, bylaw officers have been issuing fines to those pot shops that didn't make the cut but haven't yet closed their doors. Around 28 have reportedly shut down.

Pot activist Jodie Emery told VICE the city's rules are overbearing and that it could expect to be on the receiving end of legal action from dispensary owners.

Last week, Toronto Mayor John Tory said he'd like Toronto to consider following in Vancouver's footsteps. He's written a letter to the city's licensing committee asking them to report back on how best to proceed.

Correction: A previous version of this article said Vancouver issued the country's first dispensary business licence. In fact, Kimberley, BC issued the first one earlier this year.

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Screenshot via Dudes Helping Dudes

We live in a world where masculinity is both frail and toxic. Men are almost four times more likely than women to commit suicide and more than six million men have depression each year in the United States, according to the National Institute of Health. That's less than the number of women who are depressed, but men are far less likely to seek help. And when guys do complain, their problems are often met with minimization or judgment. They're told to "man up."

That reality started to bother Stephen Cramer, a 42-year-old in Detroit, Michigan, when he was having marriage issues a few years ago. His now-ex-wife pointed out he was having trouble conveying his feelings, but he didn't know how to ask for help or where to turn for advice.

So he created the Facebook support group Dudes Helping Dudes (DHD), for men to ask questions and connect emotionally with other men, without the typical shitposting associated with message boards.

Online groups, on Facebook and elsewhere, have long provided a safe space for people to unload their emotions. In particular, these groups have served women—like Girl's Night In, an online sorority for women in Los Angeles, or Lolo's Logic, a group for women to discuss sex freely. Before Cramer started DHD, he hosted a forum on LiveJournal called youarenotalone, where he "encouraged people to message me and I would post their questions, so that people could get advice on anything ," he said. But Cramer didn't see a space focused on men sharing their emotions and problems with each other, until he created DHD in 2011.

The group now has almost 750 members—all men, spanning from their early 20s to late 50s. Cramer said anyone who identifies as a man, including trans men, is welcome to join, but the group is closed so only members can see the posts.

"I encourage my friends to add as many of their male friends as they'd like," Cramer told me. "I knew guys would open up to other guys if they knew it was a closed group."

Related: My Hug-Filled Attempt to Learn Why Men Are Still Bad at Sharing Emotions

Cramer said expressing himself has always been a challenge. He was depressed as a teenager, but didn't seek help until 25 years later. Even now, he sometimes struggles to articulate his feelings. There's actually a term for that—normative male alexithymia, or the phenomenon of men choking back their feelings, like "emotional mummies."

"It's a community where people are generally cool to each other. That's sort of a rare thing on the internet." — Daniel Betzner

"My dad is my male role model and he never sought counseling ," Cramer told me. "It was a daunting task because, for me, growing up, I never saw men in my life seek help."

That's hardly unusual, according to Carolyn Peterson, undergraduate director in the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Cincinnati, who says there is a pervasive stigma when it comes to men looking for emotional support.

"Boys and men in our society are terrorized into behaving and performing a specific type of masculinity that forbids sadness, vulnerability, intimacy, or anything else that is considered 'vulnerable,' and therefore feminine," she told me. "They are explicitly punished if they do not conform to this standard."

When I told her about DHD, she said she could see how a group like this would be beneficial. "For one, it is private, and this gives men a space to be authentic human beings who can reach out and connect with other men honestly and openly. They can drop the front for a minute."

The group discussion ranges from relationship and personal struggles to mental health issues and beyond. One member of the group, 37-year-old Daniel Betzner, was a cook for half his life, but he's currently on disability due to a chronic pain disorder. He confided in the group about how he was feeling and asked for advice on what to do.

"I made a post stating that I have these symptoms interfering with my work and every facet of my life," he told me. "The response was unusually positive. A lot of message boards I've posted on, I've had people make fun of me. It's good to be part of a community like that where people are generally cool to each other. That's sort of a rare thing on the internet."

Related: Men and Women Speak Different Languages on Facebook

David Finkel, 57, also turned to the group seeking advice for a fairly serious problem (which he felt comfortable disclosing there, but not here). And in turn, he's given advice to other men in the group. He recalls one post, in which a guy revealed that he was being cheated on and manipulated by his partner. His advice, like many of the other members' advice, was to end the relationship.

It doesn't matter what men decide to post—it could be a confession of relationship problems, or asking for recommendations on razors—as long as they're opening up. The only thing off limits is making fun of or belittling someone else's problem.

"Feelings aren't right or wrong. They just are," Cramer explained. "You might feel that somebody is misguided or shortsighted in something, but if they're feeling pain, they're feeling pain. You can't argue against that. If you argue their pain is irrational, that just puts a wall between you and him."

There have been times when a few of the responses, even to some of Cramer's posts, were akin to telling someone to "be a man"—to get up and do something and just get over it.

Cramer's response has always been, "No, that's what this group is for. This group is to smash that stereotype." Cramer monitors the group for negative posts and deletes them. Sometimes the posts and comments go further than just minimizing peoples' problems.

"There were some anti-gay things posted on there before," he said. "That's not cool. This is all about bringing people together and breaking down walls. If you're going to make women or gay-bashing jokes, you're not welcome here. Any jokes that minimize the struggle of anyone else are not welcome."

There were some concerns about the group excluding women, voiced by women. As a tongue-in-cheek response, Cramer started a group called, "People Helping People," which included women but didn't really take off. While Cramer understands the concern, he still thinks there is a special camaraderie in these male-only groups.

"Vulnerability in men is a tricky thing," he told me. "You saw it on the TV show Cheers, where they bonded in a certain way when it was just the guys. Guys don't always know how to talk to women and guys should open up to each other more. That's the whole reason for this."

Dudes interested in Dudes Helping Dudes can join here.

Follow Belinda Cai on Twitter.

Mosquitos caught in McAllen, Texas, which will be sent to a lab to be tested for Zika. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

All Marie wanted was to get the Zika test.

Her husband was working in Cuba, and during a January visit to see him in, Marie, a stay-at-home mom living in Texas, had become unexpectedly pregnant.

At the time, Cuba wasn't among the dozens of Latin American and Caribbean countries that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had warned travelers to avoid because of Zika, though by March it would be . But Marie was concerned anyway, given its proximity to countries known to be affected by the virus, which is notorious for causing birth defects.

During her visit, Marie had been in swampy areas in her swimsuit, and had been bitten by mosquitoes. Her husband, who had also been bitten, had been horribly sick in December with some strange bug.

She didn't have symptoms of the virus—the rash, red eyes, aching joints, and fever—and she wasn't an obvious candidate given Cuba's Zika status at the time. But she didn't want to take a chance. Having read everything she could about maternal-fetal Zika transmission, she was aware of one alarming fact: The biggest risk to the baby is first-trimester exposure. Still, getting tested was proving to be difficult.

Despite widespread media coverage of Zika, there has been confusion and limited access to testing in the US. And as health officials try to anticipate a possible impending outbreak in the US, there is speculation that the politics of abortion will further complicating matters for women who might want to consider terminating a Zika-affected pregnancy.

Texas has the fourth-highest number of Zika cases in the US, so Marie expected the state's practitioners to take a zealous approach to diagnosis. Yet when she called doctors' offices and clinics to request the test, she was told she was not entitled to one, because Cuba was not on the list of countries with Zika. When she spoke to San Antonio's health department, she was told the same thing.

Anil Mangla, assistant director of health at the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District, told VICE that that is indeed the department's policy. But not everyone agrees with this approach. "Zika was already in the Caribbean, so it was only a matter of time before it hit Cuba," Peter J. Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told VICE. "It's possible that at the time Marie was trying to get tested, there wasn't easy access to do so, but it's a virus that is spreading very, very quickly and we have to anticipate where Zika is heading and have testing available. is not in fact a legitimate reason for women to be turned away from testing."

The CDC itself concedes that its list is not necessarily the right reference point for a doctor treating a patient like Marie. "Given her travel history and the status of Zika in the Caribbean, it would not be unusual or unnecessary for her to ask for a test," Tom Skinner, a spokesperson for the CDC, told VICE. "The guidelines are in place to be just that, a guide. That doesn't mean that doctors can't act outside of them and at the end of the day."

Marie eventually called an ob/gyn in San Antonio and explained her anxieties, but the doctor seemed vague about what she should do. "You can talk to my physician's assistant about that," he told her. At her appointment, Marie told the assistant that she needed to get tested for Zika. "She knew nothing about it," Marie recalled. Then she had to wait while the assistant gathered information about the disease. Ultimately the office still denied her access to the test, without explaining why.

Testing for Zika so far in the US has been a convoluted process for doctors, who are required to send specimens to their local health departments, which in turn send them to the CDC for evaluation . A new diagnostic test got emergency approval from the FDA two weeks ago, raising hopes that access to testing will improve in the future. But there's still a general lack of understanding of the disease among doctors as well as patients.

"There's literally new information every day," Christine Curry, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Miami, who is treating three of the four pregnant women with Zika in Florida, told VICE. "I think it has increased the number of times I say, 'I don't know.'"

Confusion aside, Curry worries that abortion laws are going to influence testing and treatment of pregnant women with Zika. "My concern is the states that stand to be the most affected by Zika have the most restrictive abortion laws in the country," she said.

Marie's experience hinted at this scenario. The ob/gyn she saw seemed intent on calling attention to her growing fetus. "Look at that beautiful baby," she recalled him saying to her. "Isn't that baby nice?" Marie had the impression she was running into a political agenda. "I felt just by asking for the test, they made assumptions that I would terminate ," she said. "You hear about girls who are forced to look at their child before they terminate," Marie said. "It was horrible."

"I'm worried that not all providers approach the issue with the nuance it deserves," Kelly Dineen, PhD, assistant director at the Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics, told VICE. "Providers should know that just because a pregnant woman gets tested for Zika doesn't mean she wants an abortion immediately or at all. She could be gathering information, considering future implications about her health or the health of the baby as well as preparing to care for a child with a disability."

Whether or not some doctors are indeed withholding testing for fear of an increase in abortions remains to be seen, but there is early concern about the role Zika will play in the US's already heated debate over the issue.

"It's unconscionable to think women would have very severely affected pregnancies and would struggle in the US to end a pregnancy they do not want to carry," Curry said. Dineen thinks it's too early to tell if there will be more abortions in the US as a result of the Zika virus. "But it's likely to bring abortion laws up for questioning, especially in states like Texas, where regulations already limit access," she said.

Ultimately, Marie miscarried at 13 weeks. "I'm devastated and exhausted," she said. She'd finally managed to get tested shortly before, at a clinic in another state.

Her Zika test was negative.

According to a survey published last month by UBS, a financial services company, 74 percent of millennials receive financial assistance from their parents after college. That includes parents paying for their kids' health insurance, car insurance, monthly rent, and in some cases, even doling out spending money. And those parents? Are they screaming at their kids about bootstraps and elbow grease? No, 80 percent of them said they "feel good" about supporting their adult children. Meanwhile, 52 percent of those millennials feel "shame, frustration, or guilt" accepting that assistance.

Put another way: Most of us young people are relying on the generosity of our parents, but more than half of us feel pretty embarrassed about it.

We've been told, over and over again, that we're lazy garbage babies who will never detach from our mother's nipples. (Or, as the UBS survey put it, we've "redefined the traditional view of parenting.") We're the generation most likely to live with our parents and delay benchmarks of adulthood, like marriage and parenthood, because we can't afford it. We have less wealth and income than the two generations before us. Research shows that most millennials will probably never be able to afford homeownership—in America or the UK—unless they have rich parents. So if you do have rich parents, and they're willing to throw you a bone, why do millennials feel so guilty about it?

"Without the presence of luck, the only way to do something extraordinary as someone in our generation is with support of some kind."
—Chris Olivieri

Amelia Heppner, a 25-year-old restaurant manager, considers herself "financially independent," but admits there have been times when her parents have handled her expenses for her. During college, her parents paid for an apartment off-campus, plus tuition and bills. After college, when she got injured and couldn't work, she says "they paid rent for me for about three months while I was recovering and looking for other jobs." And when she filed her taxes incorrectly and ended up owing $3,000 to the IRS, "my mom paid it off in full immediately so I wouldn't get any interest charges on the amount."

"But," she adds, "I paid her back little by little every month."

Heppner, like many millennials, moved back in with her parents after graduating from college. Even though it saved her money and enabled her to look for work without stressing about paying rent, she says she hated it. "It felt like I was taking three steps backwards in my life because I've always been a pretty independent person."

Related: How to Deal with Living with Your Parents in Your 20s

Chris Olivieri, who is 33 and works in internet marketing, lived with his dad for over five years during and after college. "There is a shame to it," he told me, noting that living at home didn't exactly "play well in romantic relationships" and other family members would repeatedly ask him when he was moving out.

Without that support, though, he said he wouldn't have had the financial safety net to start his own business or even finish school. "Without the presence of luck, the only way to do something extraordinary as someone in our generation is with support of some kind," he said.

The bootstrapping narrative, which suggests that all you need is hard work in order to achieve success, is a myth. You need opportunity, connections, and financial stability to take risks, not to mention a buttload of luck. Without those, your waitressing job isn't some noble lesson you'll mention later in your TED talk. It's just a waitressing job. And you're just a waitress. Maybe you're a waitress who works very hard, but without access to opportunity, financial stability, or connections, that's the job you're likely always going to have.

At the same time, "there was so much guilt associated with asking for help," said Emily Webster, who is 25 and works in hospitality. Webster, whose parents have supported her financially throughout her early adulthood, said she cried when her parents paid for her furniture. "I had this idea in my head that I had to do everything alone to be successful, and I was so overwhelmed by needing to ask for help."

Webster said she's grateful for the money her parents provided, and she isn't sure what her life would look like without it. "The scary scenario is that, without knowing they were there for me and able to help, I would probably still be in an abusive relationship," she told me. "The less terrifying one is that I would probably be living at home or with a million roommates trying to make shit work at minimum wage. I really don't know. Definitely not where I am, though."

So what happens to millennials who don't get handouts? They get saddled with student loans (if they can afford to go to college at all), working for minimum wage, barely scraping by each month.

I would know, because it happened to me. And when I got fired from my minimum wage job at Yelp (if you're not familiar, here's that story), I didn't know where to turn. So I shared links to PayPal, Venmo, and Square Cash for people who wanted to donate to my "cause." I didn't care if it looked like I was whining and begging for handouts. When you're down to the lowest rung on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you don't give two shits about what people will think of you. If that makes me an entitled millennial, then what do we make of the 74 percent of millennials who get that kind of help from their parents?

Related: Millennials Around the World Tell Us How They Feel About Money, Debt, and Hopelessness

The problem, as I see it, isn't that millennials are lazy. In fact, some research shows we're actually more productive than previous generations (just not paid as well). The problem is the concept of "millennial entitlement," or the belief that because we lean on support that's available to us, we're pathetic. But that's just not the whole picture. It delegitimizes issues millennials face, like obscene tuition prices and a low-paying job market, which has made it nearly impossible for millennials to stand on their own without falling down.

Every time Americans have introduced a system of handouts—from Social Security to basic welfare to the Affordable Care Act—there's been critical push back, inevitably followed by acceptance that assistance is good for the community. This is to say: We react to hardship by first questioning its validity, distancing ourselves from it out of pride, spouting our faith in the American Dream, and then, eventually, we wizen up and realize the overwhelming benefits of helping others.

There's nothing shameful about taking money from your parents, or anyone else who's willing to help you. Those kinds of "handouts" are the difference between going to college and not. It's the difference between working hard in a dead-end job and having the safety net to take a risk. And pretending you've done it on your own, without the help of your parents or other financial givers, is missing the point altogether.

Follow Talia Jane on Twitter.

Everyone wants Tituss Burgess to be his or her best friend. I witnessed this firsthand at an Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt preview event with co-star Carol Kane at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in March. When Burgess descended the theater's steps, hundreds of mostly female millennials jumped to their feet for him, cheering as though Queen Bey herself was in attendance.

After a dozen years as a struggling New York actor, Burgess is finally becoming a household name. As Titus Andromedon in Netflix's acclaimed Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Burgess plays the splashy roommate tasked with catching Kimmy up on the ins and outs of life in NYC, from landing guys to earning paychecks, along with the every pop-culture happening of the past 15 years.

The kimono-wearing, celebrity-obsessed nightclubber Andromedon is part Blanche Devereaux from The Golden Girls, part Stefon from Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update. He also sings better than anyone on Glee—before television, Burgess was Sebastian the crab in the Broadway production of The Little Mermaid. His Unbreakable character's hilarious music video, "Peeno Noir: An Ode to Black Penis," featured rhymes on noir such as "caviar," "Myanmar," and "mid-size car." The video not only went viral—it provided the impetus for the actor's recently launched brand of wine, Pinot by Tituss (really), which he has been busy promoting whenever he shows up on late-night talk shows, which is more and more these days.

All photos by Nathan Bajar

When I met Burgess last month in his neighborhood of Harlem, he was excited to try some wine though a bit nervous at the prospect of getting it right. Our original angle had been a wine tasting, where we would sample his pinot noir alongside two competitors in a blind taste test.

"I usually drink a malbec or a merlot," the 33-year-old Athens, Georgia, native admitted. "So I needed my pinot noir to be a little thicker, a little richer, a little fuller."

After identifying his own brand with a slight hesitation, Burgess asked Pompette's owner, Mozel Watson, who was serving us, about his decade in the wine industry. "First of all, you don't look old enough," Burgess said, sounding a bit dumbstruck. "Second of all, I don't know that I've ever met another African American in the wine industry... very rarely."

"There's a few of us," Watson concurred.

As we sipped Burgess's signature pinot noir, the actor digressed several times to acknowledge Watson's choice of soundtrack, Beyoncé's new album, Lemonade. "It is so hard to listen to," he exclaimed. It's not that he didn't think it was good—he does—rather it's that Burgess had just ended his romantic relationship of four and a half years, a fact he volunteered exactly one minute after I turned on my tape recorder. I was quite surprised to hear this—his partner was mentioned in Burgess's New York Times Sunday Routine weeks earlier, and on a pre-taped episode of The Wendy Williams Show. Plus I'd just binge-watched the second season of Unbreakable, in which he falls in for a construction worker named Mikey (Mike Carlsen) over the course of 13 episodes. As season two ends, Titus is the only Unbreakable character in a healthy romantic relationship.

Still, he does see a parallel with plot of the show. "On season two of Unbreakable, Kimmy has emotion burps. I had emotion outbursts that were out of character for Tituss Burgess," he said, gesturing with his hands. "[Kimmy and Tituss Burgess] sort of intersected and lived together for a second, and I felt like I was drowning. I'm not that kind. I'm a very happy man. Very focused, very full of life." He and his ex-boyfriend, Pablo Salinas, remain best friends. They actually watched Lemonade together the weekend it came out, which was awkward because Burgess had been unfaithful in the past. "I could tell just felt vindicated," he said.

Unbreakable showrunners Robert Carlock and Tina Fey wrote the part of Titus Andromedon with Burgess in mind (he had previously appeared on the duo's 30 Rock as a hairdresser named D'Fwan). Despite Tituss and Titus sharing a homophonic name, a love of Broadway, and a neighborhood (on the show, Harlem is renamed "East Dogmouth"), Burgess is differs from his character in many ways. Whereas Andromedon née Ronand Wilkerson didn't realize he was gay until he married a woman, Burgess told me he first had inklings of his sexuality when he was in kindergarten. Burgess also does not like being the center of attention—he'd rather chide Watson about his love life or plan a cookout for the shopgoers than answer my questions—because he's genuinely curious to get to know other people and foster community. While Titus Andromedon is a charming egomaniac, the actor who portrays him is a true egalitarian.

"There's nothing stereotypically mainstream about what Tina Fey does. It is all subversive."

He's also politically active. During a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he described his alma mater, the University of Georgia, as "a shady school that has the name of a shady state that tried to pass a shady law," a reference to House Bill 757, which would have allowed faith-based organizations to discriminate against hiring LGBT workers.

When I asked Burgess about his political leanings, he was happy to oblige me. In his view, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Texas are "experiencing what I would call a pulling down of the pants," he said. "I think people are just exhausted. Jenna, as much as I respect you, I have no vested interest in who you sleep with. Or, who you date. And I can't for the life of me figure out why that's so important to other people. Out of all the things that are important to being a human being," he said.

"We have to pull religion out of government once and for all—it has no place there whatsoever," he continued. Burgess is a practicing Christian who attends Middle Collegiate Church in Harlem and frequently dines with his pastor, Dr. Jacqui Lewis—but he strongly advocates for separation of church and state. "In order to honor the human being, we must allow for other people to exist," he said.

Unlike Burgess, Unbreakable's Titus is anti-religion, although he is still in touch with his spiritual side. He claims to have had several previous lives, including a stints as an openly gay slave named Alphonse and a Napoleonic Frenchman who nearly invented raisins.

The most-talked about plot point in season two involves Titus's decision to stage a one-man show, Kimono She Didn't: Murasaki's Journey, dressed as the Japanese geisha his soul once embodied. Many critics disapproved—Alex Abad-Santos at Vox called it "another Tina Fey project that paints Asian people, specifically Asian women, as crappy characters." (At VICE, Mallika Rao asked, "How can someone so smart at evening the playing field for women be so dumb about other poorly represented people?")

Despite the controversy, Burgess had no trouble defending the creative choices his bosses make. When I asked, "Why risk having a white person play someone whose actually Native American?" in relation to the contentious storyline of Native American character Jackie Lynne, played by Jane Krakowski, Burgess replied, "It's not one of those situations where #OscarsSoWhite and we are stealing a role from a Native American. It is giving voice to a people who have had an entire legacy of people stealing things from them, and now one of their own willfully left them. Most of what do, I think, is exacerbate—or exploit, rather—what is wrong with America." He asked if I understood, seeming a bit put out that I'd required any explanation.

I rephrased my question, curious about Fey's motivations specifically. He replied, "There's nothing stereotypically mainstream about what Tina Fey does. It is all subversive. It is all in attempt to thwart and to come from left field, and to put into the mainstream dialogue what is not normally mainstream. It's more than just comedy. It's social commentary, it is ignoring social commentary, it is, 'I'm a woman who's at the top of her game, who can write about and say whatever she wants and not apologize for it.'"

He continued, "It is giving focus to a white, male-dominated world where you got a storyline about a Native American, a storyline about a gay black man who is out of work, a story about a white landlord who's a criminal, right? And a rape bunker victim. Why wouldn't we talk about something as radical as Native Americans?"

Follow Jenna Marotta on Twitter.

Illustrations by Darija Basta

This article originally appeared on VICE Serbia.

Stepping into your 40s is a shock to many because of the harsh realisation that even if your brain is still in its prime, your body is not. For some, the only way to keep an illusion of youth is to cheat the body into thinking it can work via illegal substances that can only harm it in the long run. And so a vicious cycle begins.

It's really hard to tell when the party is over but, sometimes, it's even harder to find your way home. We spoke to high-functioning drug users who are in their 40s about their vices and how these may have affected their lives.

Misha, 42

"I started using cocaine in my early 30s. It wasn't because of peer pressure or because I enjoyed the inflated sense of self it offers; I had enough confidence to manage the constant parties and business dinners my job demands without drugs – but I didn't have the stamina. I needed it to survive all-nighters and keep a fake smile plastered on my face, when all I could think of was my warm bed. I considered coke a natural helper, not a drug.

Alcohol made me dull and sleepy and energy drinks made me gassy, so I saw coke as my only option. And for a while it worked: a line in the morning, after another night out, was enough to get me through the rest of the day – to take my kids to school, to run my errands, to work. Whenever I felt my energy drop, I'd take another bump. And another one to fight off the comedown. I could afford it, and since it felt like it helped me deal with my work I rationalised that the cocaine actually helped me make even more money. And because of that and the fact that I kept the goods to myself, nobody noticed my habit. My family did suffer a little – mostly my wife, because I always found time and energy for my children, less for her. By doing a bump, if necessary.

I don't regret the money I've wasted on cocaine, but I do regret what it has done to my health.

I was a successful professional on the outside and a ticking time bomb on the inside. In bed one morning, I suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe. I started getting heart cramps and one arm felt stiff. I'd heard that must mean I was having a stroke. I panicked and the only think I could think of to do was to take a Xanax. When I finally did see a doctor, he prescribed pills and gave me strict instructions to slow down with my lifestyle. In short – to stop using cocaine.

It was a real struggle. By that time, I was already separated from my family and would spend my days in deadly apathy. I kept going to work but faltered, because I lost my energy level. Sometimes I'd do another tiny bump, just to get over my bouts of depression.

My sons are almost grown now, and I've never mustered the courage to talk openly about drugs to them, possibly because I haven't been able to kick the habit entirely myself. I still occasionally feel the urge to take another bump, whatever the consequences. But I manage to stay away most of the time. If I was an honest man, I'd tell my kids that coke is an addictive drug – mostly because of what you can do and feel when you are on it without much of an effort. And that I'd take it again, despite the price I've paid. Not the financial price – I don't regret that – but I do regret what it has done to my health."

Vesna, 45

"Being their only child, I grew up as my mum and dad's little princess. We always went on ski trips and exotic holidays abroad, I had all the clothes and toys I could dream of – I had everything. Despite my parents spoiling me, I was also a great student and never really misbehaved. They trusted me so I was given unlimited freedom, which I never abused.

The people I hung out with were beautiful, fashionable and always drunk. The fact that this bored me no end didn't make me look for a different crowd. I wasn't one of them but I certainly wasn't one of any other group, either. That changed the night I met the love of my life, at one of these boring parties. He was arrogant and very open about his resentment for everybody there but for some reason, he spared me and won me over. He was smart and fearless, and at some point in the night, he offered me a bump of a yellowish-white powder, wrapped in tinfoil. He showed me how to snort it, I did, and I immediately felt an urge to barf. I managed to control myself though, because a lady doesn't throw up.

I never wanted the fun to end, but it did when my husband overdosed.

He asked me whether I liked it and I had to admit I did. 'It's heroin,' he said. I tried it again, and again, and again. But true love for heroin grows only when you shoot it – which I started doing a few months later. In the years that followed, we travelled the world, stayed in fancy hotels, took hit after hit. We loved each other and never fought, but there was one difference between us – I knew when to stop but he never had enough.

Then our daughter was born. We considered whether or not to have her, but my parents jumped in and convinced me to keep the baby. I never wanted the fun to end, but it did when my husband overdosed and died. That was when I realised that I needed to take responsibility for our daughter and started my own accountancy business. For a while, heroin helped me run it with an unclouded mind. But the care for my daughter and the realisation that my health was ruined brought me to my senses. I joined a rehabilitation programme based on methadone, so I'm still on drugs – only legally.

I've kept my past and present from my daughter. She seems to come from a different world than the one I've spent such a big part of my life in: She doesn't drink, doesn't smoke and avoids anyone who uses weed recreationally. She would probably freak out if she knew about my drug use – or she simply wouldn't believe it.

I exercise now. My health is my priority, for my daughter's sake. I don't regret anything I've done, but I'd die if my daughter chose to live her life the way I did."

Maja, 46

"I'd always been a drinker but except for the occasional joint, I hated drugs. That changed ten years ago, at 35, at a friend's house party. Everyone in attendance was over 35 – most were over 40. We were parents, divorced, freshly separated or fighting to save the shell of a marriage.

I was offered a line of cocaine from the cover of a CD of children's songs. I'd seen enough on TV to immediately see in my mind's eye the montage of my tragic death – have a panic attack, lose everything and everyone dear to me, OD on a stained mattress in a crack den. I tried it anyway. A while later, I asked for some more.

I tried it again a couple of years later, and that was the start of what became a problem. I kept drinking a lot, and cocaine helped me to keep my focus. Drinking became senseless without coke. What used to be just a terrible hangover became a comedown that included heart palpitations, a lack of oxygen, paranoia, depression and other dark thoughts. I tried to solve those comedowns with more coke, which meant racking up lines became a daily ordeal.

Since I wasn't feeling well and found it really hard to get out of bed on certain days, I started skipping work regularly. I maxed out my credit cards and started buying cocaine on a loan, which I'm still paying off today. I took it at home, alone – which is basically like throwing it in the bin. But the fact that I was older when I started doing it may have saved me too. I was surrounded by relatively responsible grown-ups who noticed that something was very wrong with me. Friends and people from work called me and started pushing me to get a grip. It isn't as much fun to get high when you have all these worried friends bothering you. On top of that, I was broke and my skin literally started turning green.

I don't use cocaine any more. Looking back, it frightens me that it took me so little time to become completely obsessed with it. It was so easy to get hooked, I should never think I'm completely over it."

Now that I'm older, I don't mind paying a bit more for my drugs, and I'm more cautious. I use them in my flat, never outside.

Nikola, 40

"I started smoking weed recreationally in high school. I didn't smoke every day – except maybe sometimes during the summer or winter holidays. At times I wouldn't smoke for months – because I wouldn't have money or because I'd have exams. These days, I'm the same: I like smoking weed but I don't go crazy if I don't have any. I don't call a dealer anymore – I feel I'm too old for that, or to buy rolling paper in a shop. I'd be embarrassed. My friends do it, and I chip in.

Now that I'm older, I don't mind paying a bit more for my drugs, and I'm more cautious. I use them in my flat, never outside. I like to experiment though – I like seeing what different kinds of drugs do to me in different circumstances or quantities. I'm not a junkie or a stoner.

My job has some aspects that don't require my full attention, so I'll sometime smoke a joint when I'm waiting for something to be finished or doing some basic research.

I did a lot of ecstasy, LSD and speed in my rave days, but when I got bored with that subculture I also got tired of those drugs. I'd love to take acid again but this time somewhere peaceful – in a park with my friends, or watching a meteor shower on the beach.

I tried cocaine for the first time in my late 20s, and the possibilities of the drug intrigued me. But coke is way too expensive for me. When I was younger, you'd only take coke when there was a very special party, but now it seems like a daily ritual for a lot of people – something you take naturally if you go out drinking. Ten years ago, someone offering you a line would be like them giving you a fancy birthday present – these days in the bars I visit, everybody goes to the loo together for a bump. I guess it's a drug I could easily get used to if I had enough money, so it's a good thing that at 40, I'm still kinda broke."

Dejan, 50

"Over the years, I've sporadically taken cocaine and amphetamines – always recreationally, at parties and clubs. I quit doing that once I realised that nothing good ever happened to me while under the influence. It's a fake, purposeless euphoria. Once you consume some, you just want more and doing more drugs becomes the purpose of doing drugs. The problem for me is not the comedown the next day – it's my bad conscience for having spent so much money on such a poor experience.

But if I was given the option to go back in time and erase my experiences of experimenting with drugs, I'd probably still do it. I'm just very curious. I'd do less drugs though, and less often. I'd start later in life and stop sooner.

I have been very open about my drug use with my children. My advice was that it's never too late to try. But whatever you do, you have to do it sensibly and with moderation. If you don't, your life becomes vulgar."

If you need to talk to someone about drug abuse, contact Action on Addiction on 0300 330 0659 or visit their website.

You can also get confidential drugs advice from Talk to Frank on 0300 123 6600.

A young boy looks at a man with gunshot wounds on August 9, 2015 in Ferguson, Missouri. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

This story was co-published with the Marshall Project.

A few weeks ago, the White House trumpeted the progress of its Police Data Initiative. The one-year-old project prods local cops to publish data on their operations in a bid to increase transparency and build trust with the communities they police.

The results were underwhelming. Of nearly 18,000 police agencies from coast to coast, just 53 had signed on to the effort. Of that inaugural class, eight released data on officer-involved shootings, and six published information on their officers' use of force.

After the deaths of Freddie Gray and Laquan McDonald and others—in an age when police in many cities are under greater scrutiny than they've been in decades—how is it that we know so little about how officers employ force to subdue suspects?

"How many times this week has the department used a Taser? How many times have people been hospitalized because of a beating?" said Walter Katz, the independent police auditor for the city of San Jose, California. "There is a complete dearth of such information. To me, that type of force can have just as corrosive an effect on community relations as an officer-involved shooting."

The open secret is that we know very little about much of how the criminal justice system operates in America. These aren't things the government knows and won't tell us (though there are plenty of those, too). It's because state, local and federal governments, which ought to rely on data to inform the policies they enact, just don't know.

In some cases, the federal government commissions criminal justice surveys that offer national estimates, often years after the fact. But the kind of granular, local, real-time data that powers most industries is all but absent. The number of times police use force or shoot someone in the line of duty are just the most obvious examples in our current national conversation.

Among the things we don't know about our criminal justice system:

• how many people have a criminal record
• how many people have served time in prison or jail
• how many children are on some type of supervision or probation
• how many juvenile offenders graduate to become adult offenders
• how often people reoffend after being released from prison
• how many shootings there are in America
• how many police are investigated or prosecuted for misconduct
• how many people in America own guns
• how often police stop pedestrians or motorists
• how many incidents of domestic violence are reported to police
• what percentage of those eligible for parole are granted release from prison
• how many corrections officers are disciplined or prosecuted for abusing prisoners
• how many criminal cases are referred to prosecutors and how they decide which to pursue

The excuses for why we don't have better data about our police, our courts and our prisons may sound familiar to anyone who has worked in corporate America: there isn't enough money to hire analysts; the IT department says it can't be done; the chief is moving on to another department.

Local autonomy has not been helpful for good criminal justice data. The fraction of the country's 18,000 police departments that do collect figures on officers' use of force have no consistent definition of what constitutes force. Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts' Public Safety Performance Project, cites similar issues in other parts of the system, like probation. There are thousands of probation agencies, but they are either run at the state or local level. In one place, probation is part of the executive branch; In another, it's part of the judiciary. The lack of consistency makes contacting all the agencies a daunting prospect, much less moving them toward timely and uniform reporting of statistics.

The Center for Policing Equity has been collecting data from police agencies on pedestrian and traffic stops, as well as uses of force. The center's co-founder Phillip Atiba Goff, a visiting scholar at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, said the National Justice Database has commitments from police departments that cover about one-third of the nation's population. But for him, it's not a matter of whether police are collecting data, but how they're collecting it. Many departments, for instance, don't collect the age of people who are on the receiving end of police officers' use of force, or they may omit the reason why a suspect was stopped in the first place.

"Within a particular category of data, there are huge disparities in what's filled in," Goff said.

Katz agreed, "There's no consistent, uniform way of collecting data or agreement on what should be collected."

There is one part of the Department of Justice tasked with collecting and publishing data: the Bureau of Justice Statistics. But no one argues that the Bureau, which is a clearinghouse for all kinds of data on police staffing, prison rape, crime figures and more, should be doing it all by itself. Some, like Katz, believe the answer to improving what we know has to come from individual states.

"I don't think the BJS can do it," said John Pfaff, a professor at Fordham Law School in New York. "Every year, Congress asks them to do more and more already. I don't think they have the capacity to do any more. They do amazing stuff, but I don't think they can."

When it comes to bad data, police aren't even the worst offenders. While there is data on policing and corrections and some on the courts themselves, the biggest piece missing is information on how local prosecutors operate.

"We have really no data whatsoever on what prosecutors do, almost none," Pfaff said, adding, "We don't know what they're doing, why they're doing it and what drives their decision process."

And that ignorance has an impact on efforts to reduce incarceration levels and lower sentences. Because we don't have data on how prosecutors work, we don't focus on them when we talk about reforms, Pfaff said. Gelb called prosecutors "the biggest and most significant black box to be opened in the system."

The problem with a lack of data on the criminal justice system is more than just budgetary. It's a cultural issue that gets to the heart of why criminal justice reform is so very difficult.

"For some departments there may be cultural resistance to looking too closely," Katz said. "Police departments can be very insular, very closed off. Within the closed system they may not even perceive that this may be a best practice."

This aversion to transparency has rubbed off on lawmakers, who may find the numbers mildly interesting, but not really necessary to guiding policy for a system that largely runs itself, according to Gelb.

"If that's the approach and the attitude, why would you need to have real time, actionable data for policy decisions? Policy makers have not seen the need for it," he said.

And what we—and policymakers—don't know about criminal justice could fill a prison.

This article was originally published by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the US criminal justice system. Sign up for the newsletter, or follow the Marshall Project on Facebook or Twitter.

(Image via YouTube / Gage Skidmore)

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

US News

• Trump Would Talk to Kim Jong-un
  Donald Trump said he would be willing to meet Kim Jong-un face-to-face to discuss North Korea's nuclear program. "I would speak to him, I would have no problem speaking to him," said the Republican candidate, who also claimed China could stop North Korea's nuclear ambitions with "one meeting or one phone call." —Reuters
• Bill Would Let Families of 9/11 to Sue Saudi Arabia
  The US Senate has passed a bill that would allow families of the 9/11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia. The White House has threatened to veto the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act if it passes the House, and Saudi Arabia has said it would consider selling up to $750 billion in US assets if it ever becomes law. —The New York Times
• Millions More Americans Become Eligible for Overtime
  The Obama administration will today announce its long-awaited rule change to overtime, making 4.2 million more Americans eligible. Previously, only salaried workers who earned below $23,660 a year were eligible for overtime pay, but as of December, 2016 the threshold will rise to $47,476. —The Washington Post
• Clinton Within Touching Distance of Nomination
  Hillary Clinton needs less than 100 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination after narrowly winning the Kentucky primary. But Bernie Sanders, who won Oregon by 53 percent to Clinton's 47 percent, vowed to carry on. "We just won Oregon, and we're going to win California," he said. —NBC News

International News

• 200 Families Feared Buried in Sri Lankan Mudslides
  At least 200 families are missing and feared dead after they were buried under landslides in central Sri Lanka, according to the Sri Lankan Red Cross. Around 180 people have been rescued in landslide-affected areas, said officials. Three days of torrential rains have causes widespread flooding and forced around 135,000 people from their homes. —AP
• Dozens More Killed in Bombings in Iraq
  Three bombings in Baghdad have killed at least 70 people and wounded another 100, as violence continued throughout Tuesday. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack: a suicide bombing in the Shia district of al-Shaab that killed 38 people. —Al Jazeera
• Venezuelan Opposition to Defy State of Emergency
  Protests are expected in the streets of Venezuela today after opposition leader Henrique Capriles urged people to defy President Nicolas Maduro's 60-day "state of emergency." The decree gives soldiers and police wider powers. "We, Venezuelans, will not accept this decree," said Capriles. —BBC News
• Ecuador Hit by 6.7 Earthquake
  A magnitude 6.7 earthquake has hit Ecuador close to the area where a magnitude 7.8 tremor killed more than 650 people last month. President Rafael Correa said only some "small damages" had been caused and cut electricity in some coastal areas. "Keep calm everyone," Correa tweeted. —Reuters

Some shrooms (Photo by Mädi, via)

Everything Else

• Fanning Becomes First Gay Military Leader
  Eric Fanning has become the first openly gay leader of any branch of the US military after the Senate confirmed him as Army Secretary. Fanning said he was "honored" and "thrilled." —CNN
• Ben & Jerry's Push Democracy Through Ice Cream
  The ice cream giant has created a new flavor called "Empower Mint" to promote voter registration in states where new rules threaten to suppress turnout. Ben Cohen said he wanted the message to connect with people "on a gustatory level." —MSNBC
• Mexican President Wants to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage
  President Enrique Peña Nieto said he will send a proposal to Congress to amend the constitution to guarantee marriage equality across Mexico. The president's Twitter photo appeared with a rainbow photo filter. —VICE News
• Scientists Test Psilocybin as an Antidepressant
  In a UK drug trial, 12 patients with depression took 25mg of psilocybin, the compound found in magic mushrooms. Researchers at Imperial College in London said the drug's anti-depressant potential "seems to be pretty considerable." —Motherboard

Done with reading for today? That's fine—instead, watch our new documentary 'Inside the Michigan Militia':

Iestyn Edwards poses as his alter ego Madame Galina in Iraq, 2005. All photos courtesy of Iestyn Edwards.

Think of military entertainment and what springs to mind? Vera Lynn, probably. Katherine Jenkins, perhaps. Nice-looking ladies singing melancholy songs. Lynn and Jenkins even got together in 2014 to form some kind of forces sweetheart supergroup with a duet of "We'll Meet Again."

Unlikely though, that you imagine a 230 lb male prima ballerina as the go-to choice for an evening's light entertainment in Basra. And yet, as Madame Galina, performer Iestyn Edwards has visited Iraq and Afghanistan four times, taking to the stage in his oversized tutu and ballet shoes to treat the troops to his larger than life drag act.

Comedians have long been called upon to boost morale with the funnies, and many started their careers performing for the military: Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan, Kenneth Williams. In 2006, when Iestyn Edwards first went to Iraq with Combined Services Entertainment (the official provider of live entertainment for the British Armed Forces), he was joined by stand-ups Gina Yashere and Rhod Gilbert—whose careers have since taken off.

Born in London and raised in Wales, a life of performing was always going to be on the cards for Iestyn. From the age of four, he was touring with his parents—mother a psychic, father a singer—singing country and western songs. He's been performing as Madame Galina for the past 30 years, and regularly takes part in London's thriving cabaret scene.

Now, he has written a book—My Tutu Went Awol—about his experiences performing in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the unlikely friendships that he formed while he was there. VICE caught up with him to find out more about his time as a forces sweetheart...

VICE: Can you tell us where the idea of Madame Galina came from?
Iestyn: I used to sell programs at the Royal Opera House when I was studying at Guidhall, and so I'd watch the ballet. I saw Swan Lake for the first time when I was about 20 and was obsessed with it. Stephen Fry once said that when he first read P.G. Wodehouse it was like something he'd once known really well, but had temporarily forgotten and that's exactly what ballet felt like for me—I knew what was coming next, it just all made sense. So I decided I was going to learn the role of the Swan Queen.

You weren't a trained dancer though. How did you go about learning the moves?
An ex-ballerina taught me. I realized the Swan Queen was miming something, so I asked what those mimes meant and started there. Then I added the run on and the ruffle of the feathers. And then gradually I added an arabesque or a little chassey and finally I learned to pirouette. That took me the longest.

And so how did you end up taking Galina on tours in Iraq and Afghanistan?
It started when I got asked to sing on the HMS Victory for the 200th anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar, in front of her Majesty. Afterwards, I got a letter thanking me for my performance and would I be interested in doing some more military entertainment. So I rang Combined Services Entertainment (CSE) thinking they wanted me to do my more classical numbers for officers mess, but actually they wanted Madame Galina.

They started talking about security and getting down behind the wire with the squaddies and I'm thinking well that sounds exciting!

Were you surprised they wanted to a drag ballerina act out there?
People put themselves forward for some strange things for military entertainment—things like a poetry circle or women who were offering to sit knitting in a corner, just to give off a maternal vibe.

Anyway, they wanted to take drag out there, but they needed to know I had enough gob on me. At that time, I still didn't know I was auditioning to go to Iraq. They started talking about security and getting down behind the wire with the squaddies and I'm thinking well that sounds exciting! And then they started talking about camel spiders in the desert and the insurgents... But I just thought it was an amazing thing to be offered, so I signed on the dotted line.

So I'm guessing you were pretty nervous?
I was terrified out of my brains. I went to Iraq first. When I got the call to tell me I was going, I had a panic attack that lasted six weeks. I remember walking along the road with my stuff to meet the tour manager who was going to drive me over to Oxfordshire to the military base, and I realized I was making a noise that was half a snort and half a scream.

What was it like when you got there?
It was madness from the beginning. I kept setting off the security alarm with my costume because I refused to put it in the hold—I always take it as hand luggage, beautifully folded. In the end the officer came over, reached into my Primark bag, and pulled out my tiara. He looked at me, looked at my tiara, and then to the heavens and just said, "On you go."

There's no color in a warzone and there's this noise and this smell. It's like you've got a lawnmower filled with dirty vaseline going in your living room the whole time—that's the generators. There were desert fires on the horizon because they were burning the oil to stop the infidel from being able to use it. But then we got in a bright orange school bus with dinky gingham curtains to take us to the base and we all sang "One Man Went to Mow." It was bizarre.

Were you the first drag act to go out there?
I was the first real variety turn, and certainly the first drag act. That was the risk. I was promised that my first gig would be in a nice outlying base with some nice young squaddies to help ease in this new format. But instead it was in front of two paras, the Australian Army, and the Royal Marines. Afterwards, the boss of CSE told me that she thought it was about to go horribly wrong and she'd lose her job.

Did you get any bad feeling from anyone?
Not really. Some of them were never going to get it. I watched a showreel back and the audience had been filmed—you can see that most of them are laughing but there were one or two who not only aren't laughing themselves, but they're looking at their colleagues as if to say, "why are you finding this funny?" You can see their look of disbelief.

It's not just about performing—you have to be around to entertain 24/7. I assume you weren't in character the whole time?
No, I wasn't in character the whole time, but you are supposed to be a presence there. You are with them all the time—you eat with them, hang out in the welfare center, cheat at table football with them. I used to sit sewing my ballet shoes and the soldiers, whoever wasn't on duty, would come and sit with me and start telling their stories.

What kind of stuff would they talk to you about?
Why they signed up, fear, their families—lots of different things. They'd just start talking. I remember one guy, used to be a hairdresser on the Wirral and had stopped that to sign up. He wished he hadn't. Then there was one utterly stunning bloke in the 9th Regiment. He told me how he'd got in debt and had become a stripper, then a porn actor. He sewed my shoes for me because he was better at it.

Did anything frightening happen while you were on tour?
There was a rocket attack in Kandahar on the way to Camp Bastion found out I was running around looking for it, he went apeshit at me. When I got back to my barracks, him and his mates had taken all of my stuff out—all my make-up, shoes, everything—and wrapped it in miles and miles of cling film and left a note: "You will keep a reasonable amount of fear about you at all times." It took me hours to get it all unwrapped. That was my lesson learned.

You've stopped going out there now. Why?
I went our four times and stopped because the shock value had gone. They knew what I was going to do, they were coming at me with requests. The reason I was sent out there was to remove their mind from whatever they'd seen in the war.

Follow Olivia Marks on Twitter.

My Tutu Went AWOL! by lestyn Edwards is published by Unbound.

Billy Ocean and a friend in the "Suddenly" video, perhaps on their way back to an afterparty

Afterparties always seem like such a great idea at the time. Everyone milling about on the sidewalk after being unceremoniously ushered out of the bar, traffic in the street growing thinner. To those who are still standing at this time, news of an afterparty is like a death sentence commuted on the walk to the chamber. The next few hours will be heady. Time, in the traditional sense, won't exist. The next morning everyone will pray for death, but now is the time stories that will be told for years are born and bonds that feel unbreakable are made between strangers who will never see one another again. This column is about the things that happen during those special hours.

The time for dancing has passed. The thud and clatter of house music has receded. And now you are here. A taxi carried you through the sodium-bathed streets of the slumbering city. Here.

But why?

A basement apartment. On the laminate floor a bunch of strangers huddle, their tired, glassy eyes bulbous, wired, crazy. The chatter is loud. Voices come out of the gloom like a finger-poke in the sternum. On the glass coffee table, someone is manipulating a set of white papers, emptying in tobacco, crumbling resin.

There is hugging––guys and girls, guys and guys, girls and girls. There is the promise of messy, tired, sweaty sex. For some, but not for you.

You are alone. You lost your friends. You came here because you were chatting to a guy in the courtyard of that club and he knew a guy and that guy came over and chatted and then there was talk of an Uber and then...

There is a laptop on the floor. Something ambient is finishing––something that seemed to last an hour and sound like squashy orange synthesizers yawning. Now someone else sits before it, fanning out the deck of YouTube videos, picking a card.

And then it starts.

A solitary late-night synthesized piano chimes out a riff, sweet with 80s gloss and compression. A man moans. "Ooooooh."

A man in pain.

"I used to think that love was just a fairy tale / until that first hello / until that first smile."

The voice is measured, serious, the phrasing elegant. You register the pause between that "hello" and that "until." You register the tonal uplift on "smile." This is a man with an important story to tell. Even in your state you can tell that.

"If I had to do it all again, I wouldn't change a thing / cause this love is everlasting."

You note the clumsy rhyming couplet––the way that "everlasting" is shoehorned in against "thing." You note and you forgive. Because Billy––for this song is "Suddenly," Billy Ocean's mid-80s hit––is talking to you. There is a naivety in the flawed rhyme that tells you he really means it.

"Suddenly, life has new meaning to me."

And there, already, the song opens out to welcome in its gorgeous chorus. Afterward you will tell how there really is nothing on earth that can prepare you for the celestial, heart-expanding swell of the chorus of "Suddenly" by Billy Ocean. It is life with the color, brightness and contrast all turned up. It is like turning the corner of a suburban estate and finding the Grand Canyon. It is like meeting your executioner and having every shabby misdeed of your ugly past forgiven. It is like coming home.

"There's beauty up above, and things we never take notice of."

The author, right, at an afterparty that may not have been too dissimilar to the one described in this article.

George Eliot, author of Middlemarch, wrote that the purpose of the novel is to "extend our sympathies." Billy does that. Right here. He reminds us of those things we overlook, forget like the song of a sparrow in the morning, the smile of a grandmotherly figure on the bus, the kindness of that dude at the club who gave you a handful of cigarettes when you'd only asked for one.

"You wake up and suddenly, you're in love."

Riding up high on the crest of that glorious chorus, Billy looks down on us, a benign deity, and beatifies us by reminding us what is important in life. Like a sage sitting at the end of a neon-lit 80s bar in a white tuxedo with the sleeves rolled up, Billy is talking to you, telling you how to be a human being. Crumpled, with sweaty armpits and early-morning breath, you feel ashamed, inadequate. But there is hope. You and Billy are in this together. And Billy will show you the way.

"Girl, you're everything a man could want and more / one thousand words are not enough to say what I feel inside / Holding hands as we walk across the shore, never felt this way before / now you're all I'm living for..."

Maybe it's the spliff, but does Billy's voice falter just a little on the word "shore"? It's a hint of imperfection that reveals the trembling emotion beneath. Billy is keeping it together––just––and he's doing it for you. He's doing it because he needs to tell you something important, something about how your selfish little life of SnapChat fucks, soiled nights and Uber escapes is meaningless. Meaningless against the glory of love. But it's OK. It's all right. Billy is here now. You will trust in Billy and Billy will take your hand and you will walk across the shore together.

The cover art for Billy Ocean's 1984 album Suddenly, on which the eponymous single features

And now that transcendent chorus once more. Is that a quiver of your lip, a stray tear loosening in your eye?

"Suddenly, life has new meaning to me . . . "

Oh God, the wasted time. Oh God, your futile aspirations, your petty jealousies, your stupid, selfish dreams. Oh God, the one who you left so cruelly; the one who you never plucked up the courage to speak to. As the sound expands and the piano doubles down, playing a quasi-classical phrase over Billy's ecstatic revelation, you see the truth of your miserable life laid bare before you.

"Each day, I pray, this love affair would last forever, oooh oooh / Suddenly, life has new meaning for me."

You picture every musician in that LA studio sweating, giving everything and you wonder if they knew, like, really knew what they were doing, recording a song with the power to change lives, to alter destinies, to breathe new life into a loveless world.

To say: "You will be alright."

Now you are getting on your feet, fumbling for your phone, searching for that Uber app. Now, finally, you understand. This is why you came here. You will leave this dingy apartment, and its ring of messy strangers. You will go home, you will sleep and you will wake up renewed, ready to live a new kind of life.

Billy has spoken to you. Billy is all seeing, all knowing, a deity in white satin, his message smothered in 80s reverb.

Billy has spoken to you and it is OK. Everything is going to be OK now.

Follow John Lucas on Twitter.

Previously in this series: Why 'Marquee Moon' by Television Is the Best Afterparty Song Ever

Read: Werner Herzog Has a Lot of Time for WrestleMania

If you haven't heard about MasterClass yet, it's probably time. You know how iTunes has that rarely-used section called "iTunes U," where you can sit in on college lectures and stuff through the magic of cyberspace? Well, MasterClass Online Classes are kind of like that, but instead of boring-ass professors droning on at you, there are famous artists and directors talking at length about their craft.

Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman both did MasterClasses on acting, and James Patterson did one where he teaches you how to be the Henry Ford of books. Now, legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog is preparing to release his own MasterClass, so today VICE is premiering an exclusive first look at the director's video lessons.

Herzog has been teaching his craft through his Rogue Film School for a while now, but since that film school really only happens when Herzog feels like it, this MasterClass is probably your best bet at soaking up some Herzog knowledge. The trailer above gives you a taste, including such Herzogian gems as "We are not garbage collectors—we are filmmakers," and "I do not use a storyboard. I think it's an instrument of the cowards."

Whether he'll expound topics like the obscenity of the Amazon or the stupidity of the chicken remains to be seen, but one can only hope. Plus, he can't threaten you with a gun through your computer screen, so there's that.

Give the exclusive trailer a watch above, and learn more about MasterClass at their website.

On Monday, May 23, VICE launches Locked Off, a documentary about Britain's illegal rave scene. It follows teenagers up and down the country who, with the help of bolt-cutters and complicated loopholes in squatting laws, turn disused spaces and empty warehouses into the venues for wild parties.

Sections of the film follow Jimmy Whyte, a 22-year-old kid from London who acts as a sort of rave "fixer," hunting down venues for promoters, securing them, using his expertise to deal with police and security. Ahead of the film's release, we talked to Jimmy about what it takes to put on a rave.

VICE: How would you explain what you do? You're not really a promoter...
Jimmy: Well, I used to be. I used to throw my own parties. But now I prefer to do a little bit of a back role, helping other people to do their parties. Someone will contact me, asking me for a building or something, or they'll ask me to speak to the police at the event for them. They let me know what they need doing and then I'll help them out in whatever it is. It's getting them locations, speaking to police, giving them advice on what's what.

Let's get into specifics. How do you find an empty warehouse and secure it for a party?
If it's a building that's not really watched that often, we'd go in on the day and set-up. But if it's a five-star venue, proper upmarket kind of place, then it's good to let the police know that we're in there, because they then have to get high court orders to get us out, so we squat it for a few nights beforehand which leaves us a little bit of time. And also, if we then try to get into it on the night and we mess it up, we're left with no building on the day. It depends on what type of building it is, really.

What have been some of the best places?
We did a party at Burberry HQ, Piccadilly Circus. They left a window open. Normally when I say that I mean, "they left a window open," but this time they really left a window open. And you know SE1, the club that closed down? We took that over. Once it had been closed down, we took that over and partied that.

So most times do the police show up?
Yeah, I buzz off it. Many, many, many times before, police have come down, and I've left them speechless. They just don't know what to do. They're all calling their fucking chief inspector to find out what to do. That's one of the funnest parts of the night. Sometimes I enjoy it more than the party, speaking to police.

When the police come, do they sometimes just let the rave happen?
Well they can't come and shut it down, because we'd be like, no. Give me a good reason why. There's so many loopholes due to the squatting laws. With squatting, you're allowed up to 500 people in the building before it becomes illegal. But by the time 500 people are in the building, it's going to be hard to shut it down.

And it could be dangerous to clear out 600 people...
Well, look what happened at ScumTek on Halloween. They went nuts, the ravers went nuts.

What would it take for them to actually come in and shut the party down?Violence, a drug overdose, or something like that has to happen in the party for them to enter it. With a Section 63 , it basically says that you have to be invited into the place to come in.

Like vampires?
Ha, yeah.

When the police come down, the police aren't in charge, we're in charge. I buzz off all of that.

Are you putting yourself in any criminal danger?
Obviously it's illegal what we're doing, but I try my hardest to keep myself not getting into anything too serious. For example, I'll look at the building and find the least criminal way of getting into it.

How many times have you been arrested or charged during or after an event?
Never.

And you've been doing these for six years...
Yeah, and in the space of six years, I only have known one person to go to jail, and that was because they did a bit of a stupidity in the rave. But I've only known that once. I've never seen any kind of charges or anything to anyone, and I'm quite shocked by it. Because of the amount of damages, costs, money laundering, tax evasion—a lot of people should've gone to jail.

Why do you think they haven't?
Because the police don't know who to go to. If the promoter has been a bit obvious about whose rave it is, then police will knock at their door, and all they will say is "we advise you not to do the party." They don't say, "You can't do the party or else we're going to nick you." There's too many loopholes in it, otherwise they'd nick them straight away and say, "conspiracy to host an illegal rave." But they don't do that. They just advise you. If the government didn't want these things to happen, they'd patch up the loopholes.

People talk about reclaiming unused spaces as a political action, too. Do you subscribe to that view—raves as resistance?
That's what I do. I like to follow the political side of squats. I organized a big protest in Shoreditch, the freedom-to-party protest. I was proud of that. Just having the police all standing there, doing nothing to stop it. That's the kind of things that I'm into. I'm more into doing the political side of things than I am actually doing a party. That's why rave was so big in the 80s, because it was more political. It wasn't just about partying, it was about taking a stand.

I guess the one thing I don't really understand is what's in it for you. Why do you put yourself at risk to organize all these parties for other people?
Obviously there's a bit of you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. There are costs that need to be covered, because I'm putting my neck out. But honestly the main reason why I'm doing this is: I like anarchy. I love it, I buzz off it. Being able to say fuck you to the system is why I do it.

What do you see as anarchy?
Feeling as if I'm above the system, not being a law-abiding citizen all the time. When the police come down, the police aren't in charge, we're in charge. I buzz off all of that. That's one of my main reasons why I do what I do.

When you started the film, you had your face covered and you said you didn't want scrutiny because of "things you'd done in the scene." But by the end, you wanted your face to be shown because you want people to know it's you. Why?
I'm proud of what I do, regardless. When my grandkids are born, I'll be like, "I did this, I did that." I couldn't give a shit what happens afterwards, even if the police try and use the footage as evidence—there's nothing in it that can really incriminate me, because I've said the right things. In my life, I don't do anything else that's incriminating at all. I've had many, many jobs. I don't follow a life of crime. It's just something that, ever since I've been involved with it, I've buzzed off it. It's like an alter ego. You can go to these places and it's different from the normal lifestyle.

VICE have repeatedly sought comment from the police in making Locked Off. All requests have been denied.

Locked Off premieres on VICE on Monday, May 23. Watch the trailer here.

This article originally appeared on VICE France

In recent months, France has been taken over by violent protests over a new labour bill that will loosen employment laws, and is widely perceived as a means of giving more power to employers. The movement has been particularly strong in the capital of Brittany, Rennes—with demonstrators setting cars on fire and attacking banks and government buildings on occasion.

I shot this photo series over the last three weeks around Charles-de-Gaulle square, which is located in the center of Rennes. I feel that they reveal a very specific attitude held by the banks, who barricade themselves to prevent vandalism by the angry mobs. The truth is that clashes with police have been so tense that they haven't allowed for much damage—nothing that extends beyond a bit of paint on branches' facades. So it makes me wonder what it is the banks are hiding from.

I have been present at every demonstration of the past few months, and I often speak with protesters: "The media are shouting about a bunch of broken windows but they forget to worry about the lives that have been destroyed by banks," said one of them the other day. I think that sums up the situation in our country pretty well.

See more of Martin Bertrand's work here, and catch up with him on Twitter.

Christopher in the pool area of the Martinez. All photos by the author

In 2011, a seagull at the Cannes Grand Hyatt knocked a glass of wine over the French actress Sophie Marceau, just minutes before the Braveheart star was to walk the red carpet. It wasn't the first time the Hyatt's VIP guests had been attacked while dining, so the hotel decided to hire a team of vicious birds to scare the shit out of the gulls.

Christopher Puzin is Cannes' resident Hawk trainer. He's in charge of five birds swooping around several waterfront hotels, where most festival VIPs stay during the festival.

We visited Puzin and his bird crew to get the details.

Killer instinct eyes

VICE: So Christopher, you're a Fauconnerie. What does that mean?
Christopher Puzin: It means my job is to scare the seagulls away with hawks. This is because the seagulls come to the tables, take the food, and break the glasses. It's not good for the guests. A glass of wine on their clothes, just before the red carpet, really not good! We're here for ten days, protecting the most prestigious guests during the festival.

What sort of hawks are you using?
The species we're using is a Harris Hawk—they're from Arizona, California, and Texas. He flies free and attacks seagulls who would otherwise come near the guests and their food, because they are so used to people.

Just some maybe-celebrities living the good life

Is this the first time you've done this for Cannes?
No, we've worked for the festival for five years. Ever since Sophie Marceau had wine spilt on her right before a premiere. It was very bad.

I've been a Fauconnerie for 25 years now—it's a passion. Here in Cannes we have two Fauconneries, and four in total in our team. This is the only festival we do it for, but we work in towns, and big supermarkets to keep pigeons and sparrows away. All the species that cause problems. We have 21 birds in total.

Another member of Puzin's team, another pair of Oakleys

Tell me, how do you train a hawk?
After four months of training, we put them on one of these special gloves, where the bird sits and eats out of my hand for the whole day. After that, he spends five months flying free. Then we train them how to kill the prey: seagulls, crows, pigeons. After that, they're ready for the job.

So they kill the seagulls?
If he catches them, yes. But in Cannes, the idea is just for the birds to scare them. If he sees a pigeon or seagull, he attacks it. But if there aren't any they don't fly, they just wait here on the ground. The birds are quite friendly though, they're not dangerous to us. The birds we've got here at the Hyatt are three, five, two, and four years old. They live to the age of 20 and they are very intelligent—they are the only animals in the world, aside from wolves, that hunt cooperatively in a group.

A chicken neck treat

Isn't it a bit mean to make them work all day?
These birds don't live in the wild in France, but they are happy. Our mission is to protect both the predator and prey by restoring the order of the ecosystem. So even if the hawks kill seagulls or pigeons, this is what happens in nature. We've changed the behavior of animals by changing the environment—urban, industrial, and rural, thereby creating an imbalance.

In order to survive, some animals have adapted or taken advantage of their new environments, like pigeons. The aim of falconry is to scare species that cause pollution or harm. But we address each problem specifically, taking into account the environment. Falconry is one of the best ways we have to control this stuff today.

Also we reward the birds a lot, feeding them as often as possible—which is essential for their motivation and desire. Usually we give them chicks, quails, pigeons, chicken necks, duck necks, turkey necks. We also give them minerals, supplements, and vitamins.

Do you have a favorite?
Yes. A golden eagle, Koomba. He's not here though, he's too big, he has a wing-span of 2.6 meters —the guests are afraid of him. He's my favorite because he's very, very strong. He's killed a hare, a fox, and, once, a deer.

Follow Livia Albeck-Ripka on Twitter.

Despite efforts from firefighters, the wildfire has no sign of slowing down. Photo via Dan Olson for VICE News

All photos courtesy the author

Recently on Instagram I got a direct message from a friend in New York, a reputable photographer. He said, "You're a cult figure on the internet these days," then to make it really hurt, he added: "And I say that with zero sarcasm."

All photos via Johann Persson

Christopher, a young black Londoner, has reached day 28 of his detention at a psychiatric hospital and wants to go home. His bags are packed. Problem is, he thinks oranges are blue and that Ugandan dictator Idi Amin is his father. His doctor, Bruce, wants to keep him in, afraid that his delusions are pointing to a more serious, psychotic mental illness. But the senior consultant, Robert, believes that Christopher's problems are ethnocentric, that he'll be fine once he's back with his "own community" in London. And besides, there aren't enough beds.

It's been 16 years since Joe Penhall's Olivier award-winning play, Blue/Orange, was written and first staged, and it remains as crucial and urgent a depiction of race, mental health, ethnocentricity, and power—and the place they all collide—as ever. Over the course of two hours, Robert and Bruce, who represent the old guard against the new, sling around their theories of what's best for Christopher. But what becomes increasingly clear is that their patient is merely their pawn, to be seen as an advancement or hindrance to their own careers.

"It's a brilliantly ambiguous play", says Matthew Xia—a former DJ turned director who is behind the new production at London's Young Vic theater. "Even down to whether Christopher is suffering from an acute psychotic episode or a more longterm problem. Depending on what day it is and how I'm feeling I'm team Bruce, then I'm team Robert, and then Bruce again. But ultimately, I can only be team Christopher."

While the conversation around mental health has certainly grown wider and louder since 2000, "what hasn't changed is our ever diminishing pool of resources—money, beds, staff. And so right now, it's at crisis point," Xia says.

Matthew Xia

There's no doubt this revival is timely, but it's the subject of race, and the treatment of black male mental health patients that makes the play so pertinent now. In 2014, the Guardian reported that black men in Britain are 17 times more likely than their white counterparts to be diagnosed with a psychotic illness. Added to that, a study by Lambeth council revealed that nearly 70 percent of the London borough's residents in secure psychiatric units were of African or Caribbean heritage—despite the fact that only 26 percent of Lambeth's population is black. And, as Xia points out, "There is an almost identical issue with the number of black men that we have in our prison system." In the UK, young black men are more likely to be in prison that studying at a top university.

Stigma, cultural barriers, poverty, discrimination, abuse, neglect—there are a host of reasons that contribute to the overrepresentation of black men in the UK's mental health and criminal justice institutions. And what is central to the play is whether, and how far, we can look past race in the treatment of mental illness.

" there is ethnocentricity at play, stereotyping, misreadings of behaviors, confirmation bias: all these things that get in the way of seeing people as people," Xia says. "I've got a very heavy interest in race, mainly because I don't believe in it. It's a concept, a human construct, and so plays that investigate that in terms of ethnocentricity and cultural behavior I'm fascinated by. We live in a country that has painted various groups of people in particular ways for hundreds and hundreds of years. Nothing is going to undo that anytime soon."

This isn't the first time Xia has dealt with issues of race. He won awards for his production of Sizwe Banzi is Dead—a play about a photographer living in apartheid-era South Africa who starts photographing black women and men whose lives would otherwise go unrecorded and be lost to history. It gained him a reputation as one of Britain's most exciting young directors. Nor will Blue/Orange be the last time he addresses mental health: for his next job he'll direct a new play ,Wish List, which takes a look at mental health, benefit cuts, and what it means to be fit to work. As he puts it, "I'm not interested in making fluffy, nice, and pretty song and dance shows."

Xia hasn't had a conventional route into theater. At 16, he dropped out of school in Leytonstone to pursue a career as a DJ, a decision which would see him perform across the UK and Europe as Excalibah and land a job at Radio 1 Extra. Now, he's associate artistic director at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. And he's still barely 34. "I've had fun," he concedes with a grin.

Still, he admits that it was his drive and ambition that has got him to where he is now. "London has a huge flourishing fringe theater scene—there are more playwrights than photographers it feels like. But it's hard to break into. Individually, theatre's are open. But they're much more than spaces that put on shows—they're community hubs, they galvanize and bolster and embolden."

With that in mind, who, then, does he hope will come and watch Blue/Orange? "When it was done at the National Theatre in 2000, it was almost an exclusively white middle class audience who went to see it," says Xia. "I would love a much broader, diverse London contingent to come and see this production. A lot of theater experiences can be baffling. This isn't baffling in the slightest, it's a very clear story. I think we might be able to knock through some of those barriers."

Blue/Orange is on at the Young Vic in London from May 12 until July 2.

Follow Olivia Marks on Twitter.

Look at Simon's Instagram, check out his webstore, and buy his new book from Fantagraphics.

Game of Thrones is a show on television. It's about a cast of kooky characters just trying to make their way in the world, and boy, do they get themselves in some sticky situations! For instance, sometimes they kill, rape, and disfigure each other. TV fans can't get enough of this exciting stuff. "Did you watch last night's Game of Thrones?" people ask me sometimes. "No," I say, because I don't really follow the show.

Anyway, every week HBO sends out some still photos from the upcoming episode, and on Wednesday they did that again. They are pretty good, I guess. Here they are:

Photo by Macall B. Polay/HBO

A big part of living in the Game of Thrones world is standing outside and looking at something. Here are a couple characters doing just that.

Photo by Helen Sloan/HBO

Another important thing that happens in the show is that they stand inside, sometimes facing each other, sometimes not.

Photo courtesy of HBO

There's a part of the show that is in the snow and this is from that part. Is the ugly guy going to pull out his sword and, like, chop the other guy's head off? Wow. Tune in if you want to find out!

Photo by Helen Sloan/HBO

Whoa, are those actual faces, or just, like, parts of statues?!? Pretty crazy either way.

Photo by Helen Sloan/HBO

If you live in the Game of Thrones world, a lot of times you have to focus or you won't know what's going on. This guy, whoever he is, seems pretty intent on not missing anything. Good for him!

Photo by Helen Sloan/HBO

This is one of those "sneak peeks" at the upcoming episode that excites fans because it raises so many questions: Is that woman on the right the same woman who was standing inside a couple photos up? It is, right? Where are these characters? Are they having a nice time?

Photo by Helen Sloan/HBO

I'm not sure what this woman is doing. I hope things work out for her though. You never know what's going to happen next in Game of Thrones! It's on Sunday, I think.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

On August 19, 1987, Michael Robert Ryan approached Susan Godfrey as she walked with her two children in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire in England. He marched her into a nearby bush and emptied the clip of his Beretta into her back. He then jumped in his car, drove over into the county of Berkshire and continued his rampage across the town of Hungerford. Using a handgun and two assault rifles, Ryan killed 15 more people and then himself.

What's become known as the Hungerford Massacre was one of the worst gun-related crimes in British history, and in response to Ryan's spree the government quickly took action to ban the types of guns he used, particularly the Type 56 semi-automatic assault rifle, often referred to as the "Chinese AK-47."

At the time, the only person licensed to sell the Type 56 in bulk was Mick Ranger, an Essex gun dealer. He had sold a load to a supplier, Westbury Guns, which had sold one to Ryan. The shooting was the first time that Ranger, a private and secretive person, came into the public eye.

"I was the importer of the Chinese Kalashnikovs," he readily admits. "I told everybody, I didn't sell the gun to him. And in any case, even if I had done it was bought legally 'cos he had a firearms certificate. People came knocking—they said, 'How do you know whether the person you're selling the gun is entitled to have it?' I said, 'That's not my job—that's the job of the police.'"

It's true that Ryan had been pre-screened by the police and was legally permitted to own rifles, and I suppose the fact that your product might be used by a serial killer is an inevitable pitfall of being, as the Guardian once described Ranger, a "global dealer in death"—and, at one point, Britain's biggest independent gun seller.

Meeting him many years later, Mick Ranger is tall with a ponytail, and dressed all in black. He has driven me to his country home and the headquarters of his company, Imperial Defence Services, in the village of Takeley, a mile or so away from London Stansted Airport.

Ranger knows the place well: business has always taken him overseas, but it's also where he was arrested back in 2012, charged with attempting to sell a North Korean weapons system to Azerbaijan. This is the case he's most keen to talk about, but it's also because of it that he asks to not be photographed in his office—where he sits, surrounded by pro-gun bumper stickers and posters—for fear that the North Koreans are still after him. I'm more keen to talk to him about his life as a gunrunner, whether or not he feels any guilt about the business he's in, and how he feels about Hungerford all these years later.

Ranger's gun dealing began with a police officer visiting him at work at a car body shop. The police officer was a firearms instructor, and Ranger expressed an interest in having a go on a gun. "He said, 'Oh, no problem,' and I went along," he says.

Before long, Ranger was selling guns across the UK, primarily to "private individuals." Everything was above board: before Hungerford and the Firearms (Amendment) Act of 1988, it was legal for British citizens to own all sorts of semi-automatic and pump action rifles, as well as submachine guns.

However, by the mid-1990s, the days of selling guns in the UK had run their course. With gun laws tightening as a result of more Hungerford-style massacres, business drying up, and an increasingly nosy press, Ranger decided to go international. His speciality became surplus: governments with an excess supply of guns could sell in bulk to Imperial Defence Services, and he would sell them on.

"We were constantly going round the world buying up surplus and selling it mostly to the USA, some to Germany, just wherever I could find it," he says. "I went to 150 and dealt with about 200."

Work came from all over the world. On the company's website in 2007, Imperial Defence Services claimed to have agents and offices in "Bulgaria, Cyprus, Nigeria, Australia, South Africa, and Vietnam," and the collapsing political systems of Eastern Europe, freeing up after decades of Communist rule, proved to be great sources of surplus for sale.

"You've gotta remember, with the communist ideal, they never stop producing, so there's always jobs for the boys," he explains. "The factories were always renovating weapons, refurbishing weapons, so there was always something being done there. Then comes the day at the end of communism: 'Well, you're on your own, lads.'"

These countries were eager to sell, and Ranger had a talent for finding buyers. For years, Imperial Defence Services made a fortune trading surplus parts from the Eastern Bloc, and Ranger's skills in acquiring huge amounts of guns also led to work helping out on feature films. One of these was Goldeneye, where the crew needed a large number of AK-47s at short notice.

"I sent a Telex to Kintex in Bulgaria on the Monday, they came back on the Tuesday and said, 'Yes, it's OK, we've got them in stock,'" says Ranger. "I sent the money on the Wednesday and they were on a plane on the Friday...try doing that nowadays."

Things didn't always go so smoothly. In Cambodia, for example, a country then-flooded with surplus weapons as a result of a decades-long conflict between the government, the ousted Khmer Rouge and other armed groups, Ranger's work was thwarted by a U-turn by the government and international organizations.

"We found a lot of M16 magazines there, and we offered them to the guys in America we knew, and they said they'd be interested," he recalls. "But there was an EU commission there in connection with scrapping guns and what have you, and they put the mockers on it."

At the time, the country was ruled—as it still is today—by Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge fighter with a penchant for violent crackdowns on the media and organized opposition. He's also often considered one of South East Asia's worst dictators.

So did Ranger have any qualms about doing business with violent authoritarian governments?

He argues he's never worked with anyone he'd consider too bad: "We never got anything offered from any particularly bad governments," he insists. "The people that were really bad don't sell old stuff in any case."

Except, of course, for North Korea. In the ranks of despotic regimes, the DPRK (as it's known) ranks among the worst on Earth. The country has also suffered terrible economic problems, especially since the end of the Cold War, and selling off surplus military equipment has proved a vital source of much needed hard cash.

Ranger was originally responsible for acquiring North Korean weapons and, through a third party, selling them on to the South Korean government for the purposes of finding out what exactly the enemy had.

"The South Koreans asked us to get this missile system for them, which we got," he says. "It went from North Korea, via a second country, via another country, via ships in the night, and it finished in South Korea."

After the $5 million deal, made with North Korean officials in hotel lobbies in Kuala Lumpur and Kathmandu, Ranger and his colleagues were prized customers: "bright-eyed boys," as he puts it. The North Koreans were employees of the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID), a branch of the state linked to the Workers' Party's secretive Office 39, a slush fund for assets used by the higher-echelons of the government.

"We were big weapons dealers, and that's why they were offering us everything else," he says. "They offered us this Aerial Denial System, which stops all the GPS systems, freezes cruise missiles and everything. They offered us everything under the sun: their ICBMs and all the small arms stuff as well."

Ranger then headed to Azerbaijan as a guest of the government. Officials asked for quotes for a number of weapons, and Ranger, with business from the South Koreans going slow, decided to see if he could acquire North Korean weapons for his new buddies in Baku. The Azerbaijanis were particularly interested in getting hold of a man-portable air-defense system, more commonly known as a surface-to-air missile, and Ranger was the man to do it.

However, nothing came of the deal, like so many of Ranger's arrangements, and it "fizzled out." But on March 14, 2011, he was arrested arriving at Stansted, and in a trial a year later found guilty of breaking international arms embargoes in brokering the deal. The Crown Prosecution Service had a strong case, arguing that Ranger had used fake emails to "disguise his illegal dealings," using a Hong Kong-based company under the name of a girlfriend to arrange the deal.

"The jury agreed that the evidence clearly demonstrated Ranger's intention to disregard the embargoes and duly delivered a conviction," prosecutor Elspeth Pringle told press after the decision. "Ranger's dealings with Azerbaijan were not only illegal, but potentially very dangerous."

Ranger spent three-and-a-half years in prison, and the state painted his case as a lesson to other rogue gun dealers that they wouldn't be able to evade the law forever.

Related: Watch our documentary, SOFEX: The Business of War

So did Ranger learn his lesson?

"Prison wasn't too bad—a lot better than I thought it was gonna be," he says. "It's not prison that's bad, it's not being able to do what you can do outside that's bad."

Ranger is now "semi-retired," as he puts it, and is moving abroad in the next few years to pursue retirement full time. He still insists that he did nothing wrong, and that everything he did was always above board. The CPS clearly disagreed.

It's easy to paint dealers like Ranger as cartoon villains whose business directly profits from war and suffering across the world. And it absolutely does—there's no question about it. But a long way away from the swashbuckling and dodgy deals of Imperial Defence, the real international arms deals are made by the world's most powerful governments. The planet's biggest arms dealer is the US; in 2014, some $36.2 billion was made through America's powerful military industrial complex—profits that Ranger and his buddies could only dream of.

And the government that made a very grand point of locking Ranger up also makes a decent buck from war and suffering. Britain is home to one of the world's largest defense contractors, BAE Systems, and the UK government has sold some £5.6 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia alone since 2010—weapons that have been used against civilians in the GCC coalition's brutal war in Yemen.

"I don't think all the stuff the Brits are selling to Saudi Arabia, they shouldn't really be sold," says Ranger. "Normally you cannot sell guns or weapons to somebody that's involved in a conflict. You won't get an export license for it. If the British export control laws are followed in the same way they're followed in other countries, there should have been an embargo on goods going to Saudi Arabia."

Throughout much of the interview, I can't help but notice that sitting on Ranger's shelf, between the neatly organized editions of Jane's Defence annuals (a Bible for the defense industry), is a copy of the iconic countercultural tome The Anarchist Cookbook: a guide to making bombs, shooting guns, and manufacturing drugs.

Walking back to his car after the interview, I jokingly ask him about it: he's not planning an insurgency, is he? "Not at all," he says. But with his connections, there's no doubt he could.

Follow Oliver Hotham on Twitter.