Much of the hype about drugs ignores the fact that they're dangerous because for all we know, 50% or more of what is sold as ecstasy may be rat poison or something equally toxic. How do you legislate to stop people doing what they want to do? Many people want to take substances, including alcohol, that alter their mood or consciousness. Most people are able to do it without causing themselves or others excessive harm. It could be argued that the likelihood of harm would be reduced even further by a regulated industry which restricts supply, provides warnings to consumers and monitors the content of what is sold.

There will be always people who could be described as having addictive personalities. But it could be argued that their addictions may have more to do with their personalities than with the substance they take. Can it be argued that if drugs were regulated it would be more difficult for addicts to acquire large quantities of them? There would be warnings about their use or misuse. Sale could be restricted. Content and quality would meet certain standards...

It's time to debate whether all we've done in the past has progressed the issue at all. If the situation is not improving, and it appears it's not, we might have to think of other strategies. I simply don't know. But I think the arguments are worth ventilating. . . read more

Landis, in his new book Positively False, reveals the world of cycling as a place where competitors have no collective voice and have to cope somehow with anti-doping regulations that are both complex and draconian.

It’s about time sports administrators created a new way of dealing with drugs by recognising that drug taking is an accepted and integral part of sport and not something that 'shock horror' lies outside its domain. Let’s start with the proposition that we welcome drugs in sport and that we co-create the ground rules for their administration together.  . . read more

Secretary Rice certainly didn't pull any punches. "Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together - Europeans by choice and Africans in chains.... Descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that. That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today"...

No other policy is more responsible for racial disparities in the criminal justice system than the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity which punishes crack offenses 100 times more severely than powder cocaine offenses, even though they're two forms of the same drug... Eliminating the crack/powder sentencing disparity won't erase America's "birth defect", but it will directly confront it. Because of draconian mandatory minimum sentencing and disparate drug law enforcement the U.S. now incarcerates more black men on a per capita basis than South Africa at the height of Apartheid. Bill Clinton ignored this racial injustice and has recently apologized for it. President Bush has less than a year to address it. [More] . . read more

Ultimately, people will make choices which harm themselves, whether they involve diet, smoking, drinking, lack of exercise, sexual activity or pursuit of extreme sports. In all these instances, the Government rightly takes the line that if these activities are to be pursued, society will ensure that those who pursue them have access to accurate information about the risks; can access assistance to change their harmful habits should they so wish; are protected by a legal standards regime; are taxed accordingly; and – crucially – do not harm other people. Only in the field of drugs does the Government take a different line.

The case is overwhelming. But I fear that policy will not catch up with the facts any time soon. It would take a mature society to accept that some individuals may hurt, or even kill themselves, as a result of a policy change, even if the evidence suggested that fewer people died or were harmed as a result. It would take a brave government to face down the tabloid fury in the face of anecdotes about middle-class children who bought drugs legally and came to grief. [More]

Julian Critchley was the former director of the UK Anti-Drug Co-Ordination Unit. . . read more

Barack Obama wants to become a transcendent politician. He speaks about it all the time and he embodies the idea personally. It's a nice idea but what does it mean in the context of 2008? Two issues, race and empire, are at the center of why his task will be a difficult one... Transcending race and empire then will be difficult for Obama because of the way the Right has dominated the debate. If he brings up the issues of empire and the war in Iraq then he will be painted with the soft on "national security" angle. If he brings up race then he will be accused of playing the race card and being an angry black man that is soft on crime. [More] . . read more

The media exude lies, advertising distorts, politicians spin - it's who we are. Winning at all costs is costing the earth and deadening our humanity.

In the Trojan Wars, 11th century BC, codes of honour shaped the action and allowed for truces. Today we have unbridled torture, daily air strikes on foreign lands and mercenaries beyond the law. Yet we're supposed to applaud the military, just like we applauded Marion Jones. A dumb Australian politician can determine the fate of refugees, a dumber US President can crush nations, and neither can be touched. Both cite God as their mentor. Boo all you like at Marion Jones, but she was just playing the game.  . . read more

When transmitted to humans, BSE is known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and rapidly deteriorates the brain. How odd, because we've long been warned that marijuana also dims the lights. Now French scientists have high hopes that getting high will inhibit the accumulation of the "misfolded prion proteins" which makes mad cows even madder and wastes away the human brain.

What next? That LSD sharpens language skills and heroin cures cancer? God is possibly a prankster. . . read more

The oil companies' staggering profits are a windfall of the purest sort (Websters' definition: "an unexpected, unearned, or sudden gain or advantage"). This is not a moral judgment about the oil companies, it is just a description of what's happening. A windfall profits tax could generate substantial government revenues. Allocated to investment in renewable energy, it could significantly increase funds directed to renewables, and be a small but important down payment on the massive investment needed in mass transit, energy efficiency and renewable energy...

Re-regulating energy markets, imposing margin requirements and lessening investors' ability to trade with borrowed money, and cracking down on market manipulation will all slow the Wall Street frenzy and limit price spikes. For the long term, however, oil demand will continue to shoot up and supply cannot keep up. Ultimately, new sources of oil may become available, including from deep water sites and tar sands and shale, but these will be more expensive to obtain. The world is likely witnessing a long-term, steady (if bumpy) and permanent rise in oil prices. This price increase will impose major economic hardships, unless there is a massive effort to shift to oil-displacing technologies and renewable energy. [More] . . read more

Florida Bay is a catastrophe, obliterated by serial algae blooms passing through hundreds of square miles of shallow water like toxic clouds, yet many scientists are still picking at the scabs of scientific arguments decades old; unwilling to engage the politics of water pollution and the special interests who are offended. Well, some say, scientists must not engage in politics. In a statement released as part of the International Coral Reef Symposium, a gathering of hundreds of scientists and policy makers from around the world..."nearly half of coral reef ecosystems in the United States are in poor or barely passable condition. "This is absolutely a call to action,"... But some on the coral reef listserve angrily dismiss repetitive "calls to action" when so little has been done to stop the flood of pollution, nutrients and other human impacts on Florida Bay and the coral reef tract. They say, also, that the incessant drumbeat of the past thirty years - more science is needed - is wasted noise.

Of hundreds of thousands of human generations, ours is the first one to witness the loss of so much of the natural world. It is such a simple and remarkable point. There is a larger context and urgency for this debate on coral reefs: the issue is no longer hard corals or soft corals or even macroalgae suffocating the base of the ocean's food chain: it is whether or own species can avoid mass die-offs as a result of the unchallenged rise of carbon emissions to levels the planet has not experienced for tens of millions of years. [More] . . read more