Global Policy Journal - Comment & Opinion

Adding Nuance to Drug Control: Britain Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Move Away from the Flailing International Drug Regime

John Collins — Mon 30 Jan 2012

The House of Commons Select Committee on drug policy provides Britain with an excellent opportunity to break with past failures and embark on a new set of drug policies that are grounded in genuine sc...Read more

Into the Dialogue Vacuum - Rethinking Drug Strategies for The Americas:

John Collins — Tue 27 Dec 2011

A questionable effort was made today by Brad Freden to engage in the current post-Iraq hyper-dialogue surrounding the future role of COIN, in the context of the Mexican drug war. I think there ar...Read more

A New Low - The U.S. Congress Reinstates a Ban on Federal Funding for Syringe Exchange Programmes

John Collins — Sat 17 Dec 2011

In the midst of the current American political malaise, it may be hard to appreciate how this Congress’ decision this week to reinstate the ban on using Federal funding for syringe exchange will...Read more

An American Breakdown: Economic Management Under Divided Government

John Collins — Fri 18 Nov 2011

Until the Great Depression there was a relatively minor sense of ownership of the business cycle at the American Federal level. National debates often centred on long term economic issues and there wa...Read more

Populism, OWS and the Future Economic Role of Finance

John Collins — Tue 25 Oct 2011

The global economy appears stuck in the doldrums. The West, in particular Europe, seems unable to break out of the sovereign debt phase of the financial crisis that erupted in 2008. Meanwhile the left...Read more

De-emphasising the Single Convention - The Lessons of Drug Control History

John Collins — Tue 11 Oct 2011

There is a tendency within the civil society groups and academic writings that look at international drug control to focus heavily on the UN Single Convention of 1961. In many ways this is understanda...Read more

Edging Towards the Brink - Eurobonds and the Leadership Deficit

John Collins — Fri 19 Aug 2011

It seems odd how often politicians and the public, during times of crises, confuse short term and long term exigencies (or imagined ones for that matter). I recently wrote about the dan...Read more

After the London Riots - Policing and Public Policy

John Collins — Fri 12 Aug 2011

London is calm now. The riots were defused faster than anyone in the city could have imagined on Tuesday, and although normalcy does not yet reign, it seems en route. Far from a long slog of taking ba...Read more

Populism in Power

John Collins — Thu 28 Jul 2011

The slash and burn Republican fiscal ideology is perhaps best summed up by Grover Norquist's famous expression that he'd like to make government small enough that he can 'drown it in a bat...Read more

The Drug Trade in Africa - State Capacity and Supply Control

John Collins — Thu 21 Jul 2011

I’ve been attending a Drugs and Human Rights summer school in CEU Budapest this past two weeks and discussions with one of my Zimbabwean colleagues has led me to thinking about the issue of supp...Read more

Righting one Wrong - Crack Cocaine and Mandatory Sentencing

John Collins — Fri 1 Jul 2011

One thing that can be noted about American drug policy is its tendency to travel in circles. Its history is one of recurring shifts between terror and relative circumspection. We now appear to be livi...Read more

The Left vs. Libertarianism

John Collins — Fri 24 Jun 2011

Stephen Metcalf’s Slate Article attacking Libertarianism sadly seems to say more about the state of the American ideological Left than it does say anything about the Libertarian tradition. For a...Read more

A Good Week for Drug Law Reform Advocates

John Collins — Sat 4 Jun 2011

“The War on drugs has been an utter failure, and I think that we need to rethink and decriminalise our Marijuana laws...” So said then State Senator Barack Obama in 2004. Fast forward to T...Read more

Bad Metrics, Worse Policies

John Collins — Sat 28 May 2011

Last week I offered a critique of trends in global immigration policies in which I alluded to the ludicrous immigration cap being pushed by the Tory part of the British coalition Government. This week...Read more

Beggar Thy Neighbour

John Collins — Thu 19 May 2011

The onset of the Great recession sprouted fears that economic collapse would be accompanied by a new round of trade protectionism; the kind that had permeated the 1930s and helped deepen as well as...Read more

The Economic Consequences of the War

John Collins — Wed 4 May 2011

Four decades ago this year Richard Nixon declared the ‘War on Drugs.’ So began America’s quick march towards mass incarceration. In 1980 there were roughly 1.8 million Americans u...Read more

A Continued Imbalance

John Collins — Mon 25 Apr 2011

It is often said of economic bubbles that: when people start to say "but this time it’s different" the bubble is near bursting. Well, perhaps this week’s Forbes blog by Kennet...Read more

The Racist Writ

John Collins — Fri 15 Apr 2011

This week the French State began arresting women under its new anti-burka law. It is a shameful and racist law. Those who claim it as an instance of benevolent liberalism are misguided and wrong. T...Read more

Gormless from Seattle

John Collins — Thu 7 Apr 2011

Obama Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske’s interview with Foreign Policy this week has cemented my opinion that it’s nearing time for him to leave. If they have not already, the Obama administr...Read more

A Dove's Calling

John Collins — Thu 31 Mar 2011

It’s commonly held that only a Nixon could have gone to China. The logic is that only those politicians with impeccably hawkish foreign policy credentials can undertake adventures that would,...Read more

The Realist Standard

John Collins — Tue 22 Mar 2011

President Obama has made no Secret of his admiration for the administration of George H. W. Bush. He has taken many public opportunities to stress his own foreign policy ideological lineage with th...Read more

A Europe Dividing

John Collins — Thu 17 Mar 2011

‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.’ This quote, often attributed to Mark Twain, perhaps offers some insight into the possible unravelling of the European poli...Read more

Something of a Quagmire

John Collins — Fri 11 Mar 2011

The new report on Mexico’s drug war from the Council on Foreign Relations makes for pretty depressing reading. Essentially it suggests that some less-bad policy options are available to the U...Read more

Causes of Regime Inertia

John Collins — Fri 4 Mar 2011

I recently read an interesting paper by Danny Kushlick, founder and Director of Transform Drug Policy Foundation, which brings IR analytical tools to bear on the international drug control regime. ...Read more

The Special Retrenchment

John Collins — Fri 25 Feb 2011

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner this week heaped praise on British efforts at fiscal rectitude, saying that it represented ‘a set of reforms that are very good.’ Accompanying his tri...Read more

When Discretionary Policing Meets Bad Incentives

John Collins — Thu 17 Feb 2011

New York City can add another ‘world capital’ title to its extensive list. Last year it cemented its place as the marijuana arrest capital of the world. In the process it hauled over fi...Read more

International Drug Control: A Dying Taboo and an Uncertain Future for the UN Regime

John Collins — Thu 10 Feb 2011

When he recently described drug legalization as ‘worth a serious debate’, President Obama joined the ranks of a number of other state and national executives (past and present) making s...Read more