This Week in the New Normal #120

Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.

1. The end of over-the-counter medicines?

A report from ITV is warning that millions of Brits may be in danger of becoming addicted to codeine via non-prescription medicines:

“Around 10 million people in the UK may have put themselves at risk of developing a dependency or addiction to codeine-based painkillers

But it’s not just painkillers, it’s antihistamines and sleep aids too:

In a separate survey looking at sleep aids containing H1 antihistamines, 1 in 6 users of Nytol, 1 in 5 users of Sleepease and over a third of Phenergen users admitted to using them for longer than the recommended period.

It’s a totally hypothetical crisis, but no less terrifying for that. The problem is they just don’t have any data…

ITV Tonight spoke with a variety of experts, who all shared concerns about a lack of data when it comes to the scale of dependency on common over the counter medicines […] The separate data that records supply and sales of these potentially habit forming medicines isn’t joined up on any kind of accessible database.

“There is a challenge in that the data that is available isn’t joined up,” says Dr Roz Gittins, Chief Pharmacy officer of the General Pharmaceutical Council.

“As the regulator of pharmacies, we don’t have sight of that data, we don’t have access to that information.”

And if you can’t see where it goes from here, you haven’t been paying attention.

First, digital ID will be required to purchase simple medicines. Then the acquired data will be labelled evidence of a “hidden crisis”, and buying those medicines will be made harder or impossible without state permission.

2. The Rise of the AI Zombies

Iconic Marvel Comics founder Stan Lee died in 2018, but that won’t be putting a stop to his movie cameos any time soon.

AI company ElevenLabs has the digital rights to Lee’s voice and likeness, and is planning on making them available on their site:

The AI audio company on Wednesday said it struck an expansive deal with Stan Lee Universe, the joint venture between Genius Brands International and POW! Entertainment, to add the late Marvel Comics writer’s voice and likeness to the ElevenLabs Iconic Marketplace, its collection of celebrity personality voices and likenesses that companies can license for commercial use.

Lee is not the first deceased person to have the voice or likeness licensed in this way. Just a few weeks ago, the estate of the late Val Kilmer permitted his appearance in a new film.

It’s all getting very, very creepy.

3. Is the new “autism test” all it seems?

A “landmark study” is claiming a new test can diagnose autism with a single urine sample at a very young age, avoiding years of screening:

A simple urine test may be able to detect autism sooner than traditional screening, a new study suggests.

As autism now affects one in 31 American children – a stark increase from one in 150 in the early 2000s – experts are searching for potential causes and screening tools to catch the condition sooner.

Doctors typically use questionnaires, observational tests and cognitive screening to detect autism, but the process can take months or even years.

Now, scientists at Arizona State University have created a urine test that screens for 17 microbial metabolites, molecules produced by microorganisms in the gut.

This is supposedly great because catching it early makes everything easier, classifying autism as a fully biological condition “removes the stigma” and, according to one of the researchers:

that will prevent any hesitancy on parents’ parts to seek treatment and seek it as early as possible.’

But the cynic in me is very dubious of any test that can be done on children as young as two that accelerates “treatment” for a life-long condition.

It seems to me you’re looking at a test that will be used to funnel kids into a lifetime dependency on mood-altering medications, hooking their income up to big pharma before they even have one, and potentially making a large portion of the population more docile in the process.

But that’s just me.

BONUS: Outdated fear of the week

The Associated Press is concerned about guns… 300-year-old guns:

A musket from 1776 can fire a lead ball at a velocity of around 1,000 feet per second.

Imagine what that can do to a human body. Yet under federal and most state laws, it’s exempt from gun regulations. Many antique or replica guns aren’t considered firearms and even convicted… pic.twitter.com/RBT5ihazdA

— The Associated Press (@AP) May 14, 2026

The Independent is likewise worried about…

The bizarre firearms loophole around Americans and their deadly muskets

I genuinely didn’t know this was a thing, and don’t trust the mainstream news about anything at all…but if I was American and could legally buy a black-powder musket and/or cannon, I absolutely would be considering it.

*

All told a pretty hectic week for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention Earth’s sinking cities or New York’s vaccine mandates.

There’s a lot of change in the air, a lot of agendas in the works, if you see a headline, article, post or interview you think is a sign of the times, post it in the comments, email us or share it on social media and we will add it to the next edition.

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