Officials apprehend two students as they waited to board a British Airways plane with more than 6kg (13lb) of cocaine concealed in laptop bags. They say they were not aware of drugs in their luggage and had been tricked into carrying them.

Al Gore III, 24, was stopped by police as he sped at 100mph (160km/h) in his low-emission hybrid car in California. Marijuana and prescription drugs were found during the search of the car.

They call themselves Fatherless, a group of armed young men who have lost their fathers in gang wars in Trench Town, a Kingston inner city of bullet-pocked homes and birthplace of reggae. High on cocaine laced with marijuana and armed to the teeth, the gang is among the many in Jamaica which fight over turf, drug money and influence as muscle men for political parties.

Ms Smith, 39, had been taking a variety of sleeping pills, anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs.

A couple who won a $2.6 million lottery jackpot and spoke of helping young people fight drug addiction and alcohol abuse are facing a lawsuit alleging they held four months of parties with public sex, fights and signs of drug dealing.

In a seaside resort town where vice has long been a lucrative commodity, there was nothing particularly noteworthy about four crack-addled prostitutes missing. Their decayed bodies were found in a drainage ditch on the outskirts of town three days before Thanksgiving.

At the nadir of his addiction, a man goes to a cave, crawls in as far as he can and essentially lays down to die; but then he has the sensation that "I should be dying at God's time, not mine", then he walks out and starts a new life.

A charismatic rock singer is arrested on suspicion of driving erratically while on drugs. While at the police station, he is arrested again, on suspicion of assaulting a fan at a recent concert. Three hours later, wandering erratically down the street, he is arrested a third time, charged with carrying heroin in his jeans.

An eighty-years-old junkie starts a crusade to promote the use of heroine and other opiates among youth, as a healthier alternative to alcohol. A famous politician loses his daughter, victim of an overdose.