The Ferret Investigates

"You're just trying these interventions to save people but it's not enough because this crisis is structural. We need housing, we need support. We need a foundation to heal." Zoe Dodd, co-founder of Moss Park overdose prevention site. This summer Glasgow will be the first UK city to open a sanctioned safer drug consumption facility. People will bring their own drugs and inject them supervised by s...

In 2017 synthetic opioid fentanyl hit the Canadian city of Toronto and people using drugs started dropping. Drug deaths hit record levels - across the state of Ontario there were 1,270 that year. Health professionals, activists and drug users called for an emergency response to the toxic drug death crisis facing them. And when authorities failed to set up a safer drug consumption facility activist...

"Our deaths by suicide rate is not coming down because we have too many poor people. They don’t have enough money, they can’t feed themselves, they don’t have any hope because they don’t know what’s coming down the road. " Sean McCann, trauma psychotherapist In part three of The Ferret investigates…the health gap – a three-part special podcast from The Ferret media co-op and Greater Govanhill...

If it wasn't for safer injecting sites I wouldn't be alive today that's for sure because I wouldn't be able to stay alive long enough to hit bottom – to have a moment of clarity where I was able to say 'I don't want to do this any more'. " Trey Helton, manager of the Overdose Prevention Society in Vancouver In part two of The Ferret investigates…the health gap – a three-part special podcast f...

"We know that the first 1,000 days are the most important time in a child's life. If you get that right you have a much better chance of a life being healthy in the future.” Professor Monica Lakhanpaul, the Nurture Early for Optimal Nutrition (NEON) project  T he Ferret investigates…the health gap, is a three-part special podcast from The Ferret media co-op and Greater Govanhill magazine look...

Conservationists have urged NatureScot to stick to the timetable it set for Scotland’s new policy on wild beavers, to save animals from being shot. In our latest podcast, Richard Baynes talks to campaigners, landowners and NatureScot about the challenges and benefits of relocating beavers. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy AdBa...

Why is a supermarket sponsoring vital climate talks? And just how green is it? The Ferret has reported on the total  carbon cost   of the “principle partners” of COP26, which produce a staggering 350m tonnes of carbon a year. Now, in this exclusive podcast, we look in more depth at the one of the most high-profile of these, the climate talks’ “ Principal Supermarket Partner ”, Sains...

With COP26 in Glasgow approaching, our podcast will let you hear the hum and more about the impact of potential energy industries on this slice of the Clyde coast. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy AdBarker - https://adbarker.com/privacy

Scotland's nightlife culture is in crisis. As leading industry figures warn that venues may close with a tsunami of jobs due to Covid-19 restrictions, Ferret journalist Karin Goodwin speaks to DJs, promoters and others working in the nightlife industry about the economic, human and cultural costs. What will survive? And what might re-emerge post pandemic? When might we be able to dance together ag...

When 16-year-old Rhea from Shetland put a call-out on an anonymous social media app asking young women to share their stories of sexual harassment,  she was taken aback to receive over 60 in a 24-hour period, detailing experiences from unwanted touching to horrific sexual violence like rape. Journalist Karin Goodwin finds out more. [Content warning: includes stories of sexual violence]. This...

The Scottish Land Fund, set up to help community buyouts in the wake of the land reform movement, has become mainly a buildings fund and is heavily skewed towards a few local authority areas. Journalist Richard Baynes finds that substantial sums from the fund have helped communities buy assets already in public ownership – using Government cash to buy property the Government or community already o...

How badly has Scotland’s seabed been damaged, and should it be protected? Our podcast reporter, Richard Baynes, went to sea to find out for himself. The accompanying story is here on The Ferret . Photo thanks to Chris Rickard. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy AdBarker - https://adbarker.com/privacy

Journalist Richard Baynes explores the debate around deer culling in the Highlands of Scotland.  Read more at https://theferret.scot/deer-cull-environmentalists-landowners/ This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy AdBarker - https://adbarker.com/privacy

First published in September 2017, this report by Cormac Hourigan looks at the rise at self-harming in Scottish prisons.  This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy AdBarker - https://adbarker.com/privacy

  Jim Cuthbert , an Edinburgh-based economist who investigates private finance projects explain why they have concerns over the use of private finance to fund new schools, health centres and roads in Scotland. This audio was originally published as part of this 2016 story in The Ferret:   https://theferret.scot/probe-private-finance-schemes-scotland/   This podcast uses the followin...

Journalist Richard Baynes examines the science behind increased awareness of fish sentience and pain responses, the fears of campaigners about fish welfare, and the industry response to these concerns. This podcast was originally released as part of this August 2018 story on The Ferret:   https://theferret.scot/halt-salmon-farming-expansion/   This podcast uses the following third-party...

“They called them ‘sabia’ or ‘jaria. This means ‘female slaves’. Daesh viewed them as ‘spoils of war’,” said Dr Luma Hazim. She was interviewed by The Ferret earlier this year when we visited Iraq to report on the impact of Islamic State’s violence in the region. Dr Hazim runs a specialist centre in Iraqi-Kurdistan that helps Yazidi women who were abducted by IS – and she talked about the uni...