With the calamitous "war" on drugs claiming its three latest hapless victims - a border patrol agent in Arizona, a mother of five in California, a guy in Tennessee who lived in the house next to an alleged drug dealer - an in-depth look at the controversial, often fatal use of untrained, unregulated and often woefully ill-equipped young offenders as informants - the foot soldiers in the government's war on drugs - in up to 80% of drug busts in this country. From The New Yorker.

“They can get us into the places we can’t go,” says Brian Sallee, a police officer and president of B.B.S. Narcotics Enforcement Training and Consulting. “Without them, narcotics operations would practically cease to function.”