Mandatory Minimums Forced Me to Send More Than 1,000 Nonviolent Drug Offenders to Federal Prison

Judge Mark W. Bennett 29 October 2012

If lengthy mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug addicts actually worked, one might be able to rationalize them. But there is no evidence that they do. 

Oliver Stone on the Insanity of the War on Drugs

Charles Shaw 20 June 2012

American film icon Oliver Stone expounds on the true nature of the American War on Drugs to Current TVs Gavin Newson.

oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of December 8th 2011

Juliana Willars and Charles Shaw 8 December 2011
As 2011 heads towards a close, US high courts send marijuana advocates a mixed message about states' rights and federal enforcement of drug laws. Copenhagen attempts to legalize (rather than decriminalize) marijuana, while various nations in Central America hand over policing duties to the military. But it's not all doom and gloom: find out about the real origins of modern Christmas traditions, which have more to do with shamans and mushroom-munching reindeer than a babe in a manger... ~jw

oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of November 16th 2011

Juliana Willars and Charles Shaw 16 November 2011
On behalf of Charles Shaw and myself, I'd like to welcome you to the latest installment of the Drug Policy Forum. We deeply appreciate your patience during the last month, and look forward to resuming regular reports. We're shifting the editorial direction slightly, continuing to focus on developments in international public policy, as well as the cultural implications and personal stories of those in the front lines of the War on Drugs. The punitive cost to entire communities, as well as individuals, is enormous. Governments with constrained budgets continue to spend freely on prohibition policies that neither curtail illicit use nor address the deeper issues of addiction or public health. ~jw

A Glimpse of the World after the War on Drugs

Charles Shaw and Cara Lavan 4 October 2011

Report and videos from the recent openDemocracy symposium, "After the War on Drugs: Envisioning a Post-Prohibition World."

oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of October 2nd 2011

Mark Weiss and Charles Shaw 2 October 2011
Following the successful openDemocracy Conference, ‘After the War on Drugs: Envisioning a Post-Prohibition World’; the Drug Policy Forum is back with a bumper edition and round-up of the last couple of weeks drug policy news. We lead this week with news that rebuffing the Conservative government, the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that Vancouver's safe injection site for heroin addicts can stay open.

oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of September 11th 2011

Mark Weiss 11 September 2011
We lead this week with an article by Damon Barrett, who argues that drugs and the drug trade are presented in international treaty law at the UN as an existential threat to us - through our children; but goes on to expose the true reality of the war on drugs - that so often it is our children who fall victim to, and are not saved by, this failed strategy ~ MW

oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of September 3rd 2011

Mark Weiss 3 September 2011
We lead this week with a look at a new Open Society report assessing the Portuguese government's rejection of the 'war on drugs' in 2000, and decriminalization of drug possession and use. What lessons can be learnt from this experience? ~ MW

oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of August 29th 2011

Mark Weiss 29 August 2011
We lead this week with news that former Mexican President Vicente Fox suggested on Friday that Mexican authorities consider calling on drug cartels for a truce and offering them amnesty, speaking out a day after an apparent cartel attack on a casino killed 52 people ~ MW

oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of August 21st 2011

Mark Weiss and Charles Shaw 21 August 2011
This week we lead with the alarming news that Irina Teplinskaya, friend of the openDemocracy Drug Policy Forum and renowned human rights activist currently undertaking litigation against the Russian Government, has been arrested while crossing the Russian border. Our lead article is an impassioned statement by Irina ~ MW & CS

oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of August 14th 2011

Mark Weiss and Charles Shaw 14 August 2011
With a startling 400% rise in the number of women incarcerated for federal crimes in Mexico since 2007, we lead this weeks report with an investigation into the relationship between this growth and the expansion of drug cartels and organised crime ~ MW & CS

International security and the global war on drugs: The tragic irony of drug securitisation

Danny Kushlick 10 August 2011
In the first part of two special editions of the Drug Policy Forum, guest writer Danny Kushlick (founder of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation) contemplates the 'global securitisation of drugs' as arguably 'one of the greatest threats to international and human security'

oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of August 8th 2011

Mark Weiss and Charles Shaw 8 August 2011
This week we lead with news that that Liberal Democrats are expected to call for an independent inquiry into the decriminalisation of possession of all drugs. It would be the first government-sponsored inquiry into decriminalisation, but is unlikely to have the support of David Cameron who has hardened his approach to drugs after being a past advocate of more liberal legislation ~ MW & CS

oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of July 31st 2011

Mark Weiss and Charles Shaw 31 July 2011
The WHO refers to hepatitis C (HCV) as a “viral time bomb” due to the remarkable toll in worldwide infections and the extent of time it takes for HCV to become symptomatic. Globally, between 130-170 million people are chronically infected with HCV. In this report we take a closer look at the global response to HCV in the days following the first official World Hepatitis Day ~ MW & CS

oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of July 24th 2011

Mark Weiss and Charles Shaw 24 July 2011
This report is dedicated to the memory of Amy Winehouse, who tragically passed away yesterday. As we mourn the loss of so talented a musician, let us also pay tribute to and remember the many millions of vulnerable, marginalised and stigmatised people who have died drug related deaths; and human cost of the failed war on drugs ~ MW & CS

This week's editor

Heather McRobie


Niki Seth-Smith is a freelance journalist and co-editor of OurKingdom.

Europe from the bottom up

European Union stars in Paris. Flickr/notarim. Some rights reserved.

A new Europe can only come from the bottom up
Etienne Balibar

A social Europe must be a political Europe
Bo Stråth

As Europe is provincialized: a reply to Etienne Balibar
Sandro Mezzadra

European debate

More

Democratic Wealth

More

Nuclear non-proliferation

More

oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

More

Mali - the plot thickens

More

Remote control war

More

The media in Europe

More

Syndicate content