Regulating drugs may seem radical, but taking the production and sale of currently illegal drugs away from organized crime and drug cartels is the most promising way to keep our communities safe.
Articles on Drug prohibition
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Alcohol and tobacco use carries significant health risks but they’re legalised – so why not cannabis? Despite the concerns, decriminalising cannabis could have public health benefits.
Around 75,000 New Zealanders have been sentenced for a cannabis-related offence since 1975. With the drug more popular than ever, is it time we let the evidence guide our decisions?
Opium played a fascinating role in southern African colonial politics, conflict and social change - from the poppy fields of Mozambique to the early days of Johannesburg city.
From colonial poppy fields to pharmatrash, southern Africa offers a fascinating history of drug regimes – one that helps us make sense of drug policies and legislation today.
If South Africa’s argument in court is that marijuana causes harm, it deserves to lose. The real question it should ask is whether criminal prohibition is the effective way forward.
The figures don’t really add up.
Mexico and Canada are about to turn medical cannabis into North America’s most lucrative new market.
The decision to smoke should be left up to people themselves, not the generations that came before them.
The government’s blanket ban on psychoactive substances is all over the place.
Labour’s crime manifesto goes communitarian, despite them not branding it that way.
Ideas about drug use that are used to justify the death penalty for smuggling don’t hold up under scrutiny.
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…
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…
It is easy to despair of the low quality of public debate on drugs policy in the UK. Some of the loudest voices reflect fixed views and make opportunistic use of any fragment of evidence that happens to…
Once again, overdose deaths from opioids are increasing in Australia. And once again, we are in danger of ignoring effective, evidence-based interventions. According to the National Drug and Alcohol Research…
Sixteen years ago the premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett, asked me to conduct an inquiry into drug policy. At the time, deaths from heroin overdoses were high and the use of cannabis and other drugs continued…
Australia21, of which I am one of the directors, released its second report on drug prohibition on this morning. The report calls for a redefinition of how we deal with drugs to primarily a health and…
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Emeritus Consultant, St Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst
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Professor of History, University of Johannesburg
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Principal Lecturer in Criminology, Nottingham Trent University
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Associate Professor in Law, University of Canterbury
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Senior researcher, University of Cape Town
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Professor of Quantitative Criminology, Nottingham Trent University
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Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong
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Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University
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Hon. Professor Drug Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
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Director, Tas Law Reform Institue / Associate Professor, University of Tasmania, University of Tasmania
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Emeritus Professor, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Law, University of Waikato
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Director, AIDS and Society Research Unit, University of Cape Town
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Honorary Fellow, Department of Health Sciences, University of York
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Professor in Criminology, Loughborough University