Last week, a home office select comittee released a report urging the decriminalisation of sex workers. Yet in Hackney, London, a national sex worker safety charity has expressed "grave concern" due to "a seismic shift towards criminalisation" in the borough.
As 2011 draws to a close, the global War on Drugs gets strangely surreal, from collective magic in Mexico to a DIY concoction in Russia that eats users from the inside out. Poland decides to divert drug offenders to treatment, rather than jail time. The US finds its own citizens' cocaine habits ma
We lead this week with a look at a new Open Society report assessing the Portuguese government's rejection of the 'war on drugs' in 2000, and decriminalization of drug possession and use. What lessons can be learnt from this experience? ~ MW
This week we lead with news that that Liberal Democrats are expected to call for an independent inquiry into the decriminalisation of possession of all drugs. It would be the first government-sponsored inquiry into decriminalisation, but is unlikely to have the support of David Cameron who has har
We lead this week with news from Central America, where the arrival of big-time drug trafficking has had a lethal impact, taking lives and carrying a heavy economic cost. In other news, we explore Russia's archaic approach to methadone treatment; and reflect on the Portuguese experience of drug de
