war on drugs

Missy Peregrym and Zeeko Zaki, two of the stars of the CBS drama FBI were asked about the government shutdown...

In my final review of The Wire I discuss how the core theme of season 5 – truth – plays...

Mexico is no stranger to the assassinations of elected officials and candidates for office. And on Tuesday, the latest act of political violence to rock the nation occurred in a town in the southern state

In this penultimate review episode I look at how the education system is a poor place to learn anything, how standardised testing is a form of child abuse, the fundamental problems of electoral politics, and expand on why an intelligence-based approach to societal problems is always better than a military-based approach. I also talk about the politicisation of police investigations, the relevance of Michel Foucault and what The Wire has to do with the murder of Meir Kahane by followers of the Blind Sheikh.

The 2018 Farm Bill was passed that legalizes hemp nationwide. It now is designated as an agricultural crop. Hemp has very low THC content, the mind-altering chemical but is used to make textiles, foods, fabrics, cosmetics, agriculture products, plastics, and more.

It’s a case of déjà vu The parallels between US military conquests in Vietnam and Afghanistan are uncanny. Afghanistan has since overtaken Vietnam as the longest war in American history. During both conflicts, narcotics production spiked to record levels, as did the availability of cheap heroin on the streets of North America and Europe. Notice how the mainstream media refuses to connect the dots. It’s not merely correlation – it’s causation.

In part 3 of this subcriber-only review series I look at season three of The Wire. In this season the Barksdale storyline comes to a climax, while the city hall politics are added into the ever-expanding world of the show. I examine the Hamsterdam experiment, where one police major decides to legalise drugs in certain […](Read more...)

In the second of my subscriber-only reviews of The Wire I look at season 2. Focusing on smuggling through the port of Baltimore this season explores how capitalism has evolved to a post-industrial phase dominated by service industries like sex and drugs, how investigating sex slavery is relegated behind lesser crimes, and the parallels between […](Read more...)

This is part 1 of a new subscriber-only review series where I talk about The Wire. In this episode I discuss some of the recurring themes – the war on drugs, the failed police tactics, the dirty money trail – along with the complex metaphysics of the show. I talk about some of my favourite […](Read more...)

Another major study designed to assess how national governments wage their so-called “war on drugs” shows that the last ten years of such policies have not only failed to put a dent in the illegal drug trade, the tactics have had serious negative impacts for global health, human rights, public safety and economic progress.
As a result, the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), the international group behind the report, is calling for a major rethinking of global policy on narcotics and an end to the failed efforts that governments refuse to relinquish.