CIAO DATE: 03/2013
Volume: 68, Issue: 7
September 2012
The 50-year war against drugs has failed and a new approach is needed
Claire Yorke, Benoît Gomis
Drug policy is a toxic issue for politicians, one that they usually want to avoid for fear of the political backlash. To highlight the dilemma between politics and policy in this field, drug policy expert Sanho Tree often quotes Jean-Claude Juncker on economic liberalisation: ‘We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it'. In other words, calling for change often means political suicide.
Legalization could make things worse
Bill Hughes
The prohibition of drugs is blamed for creating the problem of drug abuse, but is that entirely fair? Before the 1960s, despite longstanding legislation in most countries prohibiting dangerous narcotics, drugs were not a major world issue.
Time to separate drugs policy from crime
Danny Kushlick
It is time to consider all alternative options
Is treating the symptoms the way forward?
Ian Perrin, David L Heymann
The war on drugs has been bad for the world's health. Concentrating on criminalizing the producers, traffickers and consumers of narcotics, it has failed to reduce supply. UN figures show that drug consumption during the decade after 1998 rose, with a 34.5 per cent increase in the number of opiate users, 27 per cent rise in cocaine users, and 8.5 per cent rise in cannabis users.
Q&A: Mark Kleiman says Cannabis may be legal in the US in a decade
Alan Philps
Mark Kleiman is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles and has worked on drugs and crime since the 1980s. He tells Alan Philps that the real issue is not prohibition or legalization, but reducing the damage done by drugs.
Organized criminals won't fade away
Vanda Felbab-Brown
How to solve the problem without generating even greater violence
Interview: President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia
Alan Philps
Colombia has paid a heavy price in battling the cocaine trade which at one stage threatened to destroy the country. President Santos, the most outspoken of Latin American leaders on drugs policy, tells Alan Philps that now the consuming nations must share the burden
European leadership is limp, but Merkel on steroids is not the answer
Paola Subacchi
There is a sense of frustration and impotence in watching the eurozone crisis unfold. Non-Europeans cannot understand why tackling the crisis has proved so hard. On a recent trip to China a senior central banker asked me: 'Why don’t you Europeans get on with it? You know what you need to do. Just do it.' In the narrative of the eurozone crisis, slow action has come to epitomise poor leadership.
We're too tolerant of corruption at home
Mark Galeotti
Moral hazard in the wild West
No need for a witch hunt over executive pay
DeAnne Julius
Globalization is exaggerating inequality at both ends of the pay scale.
The risks for British schools in relying on rich foreign pupils
Anthony Seldon
The world loves British independent schools but they may lose their moral purpose if they chase the global super-rich
Kerry Brown
Chinese give British schools top marks
A breakdown of British Euroscepticism
Thomas Raines
Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of Britain joining the European community but the odds on it being there a decade from now are lengthening fast.
Assad's fate is in the hands of the Alawites
David Butter
Will the Syrian Alawites remain loyal to their leader?
The Syrian woman who would not be silenced
Samar Yazbek talks to Alan Philps about the intimidation she endured for speaking out
Morsy's plan to keep the Egyptian army sweet
David Hearst
Mohammed Morsy, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood aligned president, is on a collision course with the army, or so say the headlines. But there are powerful voices within the new leadership saying there are limits to how fast the military can be sent back to barracks.
Paul Melly
Drug money, corruption and jihadists have pushed one of Africa's most admired democracies into crisis.
Nigeria and South Africa: Rivalries, rows and reconciliations
Adekeye Adebajo
Elizabeth Donnelly
Whether by accident or design, Nigeria is destined to become Africa's largest economy. The kind of economic growth it will experience in the coming years and the extent to which this will transform the lives of its 160 million people is yet to be determined.
Gareth Price
Being neighbourly may be Kabul's best hope for peace
Jolyon Leslie
Architect Jolyon Leslie has known the Afghan capital for decades and witnessed its changing fortunes. Here he tells of the fragile city's changing make-up with the help of the man who cuts his hair
Alan Philps
Christopher Meyer
Postcard from...Isoke, South Sudan
Elizabeth Hodgkin
When food is short, study is the first casualty
Jargonbuster gets to grips with 'traction'
Send your jargon suggestions to letters@theworldtoday.org
Books: How football continues to influence Spanish and Italian politics
David Winner
Simon Martin, Sport Italia: the Italian Love Affair with Sport (I.B.Tauris £19.99)
Jimmy Burns, La Roja: a Journey Through Spanish Football (Simon & Schuster £14.99)
Books: John F Jungclaussen's German reading list
John F. Jungclaussen
John F. Jungclaussen is London correspondent of Die Zeit.
A date with history...Germany's 1990 re-unification
Alan Philps
A plan to keep Germany down.