When thousands of Somali and Sudanese refugees made their way to the American Midwest in the 1990s, they were often hailed as success stories. Starting at the bottom of the economic ladder, they worked double shifts in menial jobs and carved out lives for themselves and their families, thankful just to have the opportunity -- and to be safe from the violence that plagued their war-torn homelands. But as Pitch staff writer Kendrick Blackwood reports, the Somalis and Sudanese brought something with them besides a tireless work ethic: a culture in which young men are taught never to back away from a fight.

Police and school officials usually start and stop drug education courses at promoting a "drug- free society," which has about as much relation to reality as promoting sexual abstinence. The Georgia Straight's Roberta Staley looks at the reality of how teenagers learn about drugs -- from each other. Young people need better information -- not only to protect themselves and their friends from addiction and overdose, but to complete the complex process of growing up, she argues.

Creative Loafing's Scott Henry unwraps the latest twist on the mail-order bride: American men looking for love in Russia. Eastern European women, raised in a male-dominated culture, appeal to many American men who want the old days back, when wives kept the house and raised the children. European Connections' "romance tours" bring together desperate (and often beautiful) Russian women and needy American men. Henry talks to one such couple whose unlikely match has survived.