Lse Iq Podcast

Contributor(s): Dr John Collins, Dr Michael Shiner, Danny Kushlick | Welcome to LSE IQ, a new monthly podcast from the London School of Economics and Political Science. This is the podcast where we ask some of the leading social scientists - and other experts - to answer intelligent questions about economics, politics or society. For nearly 50 years, governments around the world, led by the US, have been fighting a war on drugs. The aim? To reduce the production, supply and use of certain drugs and ultimately create a 'drug-free society'. But, having cost the US more than $1trillion to date and taken hundreds of thousands of lives, it’s a war with high collateral damage. In this episode Jess Winterstein asks why, after nearly half a century of global cooperation, haven’t we won the war on drugs? To find out what the problems with the policy are, and why the belief that prohibition is still the best way to manage drugs, still persists, she speaks to: John Collins, Executive Director of the LSE IDEAS Internati