The World Today

August & September 2012: Rethinking the war on drugs

An Afghan poppy farmer from Faizabad, Badakhshan province. Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Articles

Bales of seized cocaine destroyed in a bonfire by Honduran anti-narcotics police. Photo: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images

Magic mushrooms are classified as food under Dutch law. Photo: Roger Cremers/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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.

Around half of those held in US federal jails are serving sentences for drug-related crime. Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

It is time to consider all alternative options

Cocaine buyers are placed under arrest in Honduras. Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images

How to solve the problem without generating even greater violence

Lagos generates 60 per cent of Nigeria's economic activity. Photo: AP Photo/Lekan Oyekanmi

Richard Lee, paralysed from the neck down, runs Coffeeshop Blue Sky, in Oakland, California, which sells medical marijuana. Photo: Lauren Greenfield/Institute

From the editor

‘It’s all aircraft carriers, none of it moves on a dime’. So spoke a White House official, lamenting the painfully slow pace of change in drugs policy.

Also in this issue

President Juan Manuel Santos will receive the 2017 Chatham House Prize on Thursday in recognition of his role in bringing an end to the 50-year-old armed conflict in Colombia. But it is often forgotten that he rose to international prominence on a different issue: battling the cocaine trade which came close to destroying his country.

Bob Diamond, the Barclays chief executive, resigned over the Libor rate-fixing scandal. Photo: Jerome Favre/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Moral hazard in the wild West

An Eton Wall Game player. Photo: Popperfoto/Getty Images

The world loves British independent schools but they may lose their moral purpose if they chase the global super-rich

Three young Eton students in tail coats and top hats. Photo: Roger-Viollet/Getty Images

Chinese give British schools top marks

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.

Will the Syrian Alawites remain loyal to their leader?

Samar Yazbek talks to Alan Philps about the intimidation she endured for speaking out

Mohamed Morsi, the Egyptian President. Photo: Marwan Naamani/AFP/Getty Images

Mumbai, the city where enormous deals between Gujarati diamond traders are still sealed by a simple handshake. Photo: Nagesh Ohal/India Today Group/Getty Images

Age of the super city-states

St Augustine's School in Isoke. Photo: Elizabeth Hodgkin

When food is short, study is the first casualty

Benito Mussolini poses surrounded by the Italian national football team following their World Cup win in 1938. Photo: Staff/AFP/Getty Images

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)

The euro has turned Germany into Europe's economic giant, unbalancing the old alliance. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

A plan to keep Germany down

Zakhar Prilepin and Olga Slavnikova. Photos: Getty Images

Phoebe Taplin explores the dark works of new wave Russian writers

A US helicopter gunship flies over Kabul. Photo: Shah Mari/AFP/Getty Images

Being neighbourly may be Kabul’s best hope for peace

A bullet-riddled wall in Kabul. Photo: Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images

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