A COMPUTER game being developed in Edinburgh has caused outrage because it encourages players to make characters use drugs in order to gain special powers.

WASHINGTON (CNN)—The United States is stepping up its efforts to curb poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, a nation that “has re-emerged as the world’s leading supplier of illicit opium, morphine and heroin,” the State Department’s top counter-narcotics official said Monday.

Washington—The White House’s latest anti-drug media effort, which launches during the Super Bowl this Sunday, links drug use with drinking in TV ads for the first time in the campaign’s five-year history, sources said.

The new work, from New York shops Foote Cone & Belding and Ogilvy & Mather, also promotes the concept of “early intervention”?another first. That marks a shift in focus from the campaign’s usual prevention-based messages. Early intervention is a drug-treatment strategy favored by drug czar John Walters.

MONTREAL – The federal and provincial governments have contributed close to $700,000 for a series of studies at McGill University in which a psychiatry professor is offering people $500 to use cocaine.

Marco Leyton placed ads in student and community newspapers, and chose 10 men who are all in their 20s and are regular cocaine users.

Leyton said they are given a mirror, a razor blade, a straw and a bag of pharmaceutical-grade cocaine to snort on four different occasions.

Each time they visit, the men are given a different protein shake, which he believes may reduce certain cravings for the drug.

“Can we diminish the euphoria induced by the drug?” asked Leyton. “If so, that would be a very promising direction for treatments to be developed.”

Once they’ve drunk the shakes, subjects are asked to fill out a questionnaire to monitor their cravings.

Leyton doesn’t believe his study will turn people into cocaine addicts.

“Previous studies done by other investigators in the U.S. indicate that when they follow up these individuals, if anything their drug use actually goes down the following year,” he said.

The study was approved by the ethics board at the McGill University Health Centre.

Leyton received Customs clearance to ship the drug from Scotland to Montreal.

Written by CBC News Online staff