This week marks the 40th anniversary of Richard Nixon declaring a war against drugs - a declaration which has led to a trillion dollars being spent, millions being arrested for possession and trafficking and families torn apart.

To put it simply, this week marks the point where an aggressive fight to create a global prohibition against so many substances started. 

A decision and war that clearly hasn't worked - narcotics are at the cheapest and most available levels they ever been and consumption is at similarly high record levels. 

Harsh punishments and a war mentality have only exacerbated the problem.

40 years on it's time for a cease fire.

What do you think of the war against drugs and the anniversary this week marks? Tell us and remember...Disqus!  . . read more

As Mexico's long running drug war has evolved from the tragic, to the farcical and now to the absolutely idiotic, there have been few changes in how to address the problem.

More police and more military to catch the leaders of the cartels, tough penalties for trafficking.

Conventional wisdom would say that doing more of these activites and dealing out harsher sentences would dissuade the drug trade.

Conventional wisdom though is flawed, it's conventional because it's based on what's happened before - yet, what has happened before hasn't worked.

Why would doing more of it make it better?

There are other solutions 

Decriminilisation?

Logically though drug use might increase, leading to other problems to appear.

A radical solution might be really tough penalties on consumption.

Would you think twice about lighting up a joint if it led to a $25,000 fine and a 5 year jail sentence?

Would you snort a line if it resulted in your nose being cut off?

Might not be accepted by the wider public and might not be conventional, but conventional wisdom hasn't really proved to be wise so far.

What do you think of this unconventional idea? Is conventional wisdom wise? Tell us and remember...Disqus!  . . read more

Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, talks about individual rights and how the war on drugs oversteps those bounds.

What do you think of the argument of individual rights in the issue of drugs? Should people have the right to ingest whatever they want as long as they don't hurt anyone? Tell us and remember...Disqus!

Since the days of Alexander the Great, binge drinking has been a very popular past time - leading to him apparently killing a friend and burning down Persepolis while drunk.

Those are some Great shoes to fill.

Yet, governments, schools and the media have repeatedly tried to teach us of binge drinking's dangers. 

Dartmouth University has taken the lead, instigating a new nationwide policy to curb heavy drinking by their students.

Pour me another glass.

Binge drinking is defined as "the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in 2 weeks."

Seems I don't know anyone who isn't a heavy binge drinker.

Do you think this definition should be changed or should we change people's attitudes? Or should you follow HPD's no fools guide to drinking a lot but not dying?  . . read more

It might sound counter-intuitive but cocaine really isn't popular in Mexico. I arrvied here three months ago thinking that the country would be awash with coke- I thought I'd be hassled to buy it, I thought I'd see strung out people on every street and I thought I'd see violence from gangs every night.  . . read more

It's strange to sit in a country and think that not that far away a war is going on. It's also strange that in Mexico City the guns are silent and the people are intent on convincing us that danger is distant and insulated. All the while it's stranger still that a couple of thousands of miles north, thousands of people are dying a year- filling the newspapers with graphic depictions of what misery a world addicted to drugs creates.   . . read more