It’s not just energy-hungry pot farms: the ties between energy and drugs run deep. Can we develop a national drug policy drawing on the lessons of the domestic oil and gas boom?
Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm told parliament that of the $1.5 billion spent annually on drug law enforcement, 70% is attributable to cannabis. Are those numbers correct?
Clinton, who named drug companies among her enemies in this week’s debate, is pushing populist-inspired policies that could hamper the flow of new medicines.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said ice is far more potent, far more dangerous, and far more addictive than any other illegal drug. Is that supported by the data?
Indonesia’s war on drugs aims to protect the country’s young generation from an alleged “national drug emergency.” But the government’s coercive approach is harming the people it wishes to protect.
In the 1930s, Harry J. Anslinger, the first head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, embarked on a fierce anti-marijuana campaign. Highlighted by the 1936 anti-marijuana film Reefer Madness – where marijuana…
Over the past decade, drug use in the US has risen dramatically, with heroin use reaching epidemic proportions. The country’s policy for combating abuse has involved incarceration, abstinence-only treatment…
Paul Hayes, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
On all sides, our politicians and commentators seem convinced Britain’s drug policy has been a failure. Party conference season saw Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg rehash his old refrain that we’ve…
Brazil has a serious drug problem. The country lies beside the largest coca plantations in the world in Peru and Colombia. A sizeable part of the cocaine used in Europe moves through its vast territory…
Andrey Zheluk, University of Sydney et Peter Meylakhs, Russian National Research University The Higher School of Economics
Reports of a “flesh-eating zombie drug” called krokodil, accompanied by lurid images first appeared in English during 2010. The drug serves as an excellent illustration of the havoc bad drug policies can…
In 1967, the Beatles took out a full-page advertisement in The Times describing Britain’s marijuana laws as “immoral in principle and unworkable in practice”. Almost half a century later, both past and…