Children of the Drug War: Webcast of the seminar held at LSE's Mannheim Centre for Criminology

Date: 28 November 2011

The Mannheim Centre for Criminology (LSE) held on November 22 a specialty seminar to mark the publication of "Children of the Drug War: Perspectives on the Impact of Drug Policies in Young People".

The panel, chaired by Damon Barrett, editor of 'Children of the Drug War' included three of the contributors of 'Children of the Drug War'. Jennifer Fleetwood, lecturer at the University of Kent, who talked about the impact of the 'war on drugs' on women and children in Ecuador's prisons.

Michael Shiner, lecturer at the London School of Economics, talked about the limits of harm reduction in England and Wales and addressing drug use among young people. Steve Rolles, from Transform and author of 'After of War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation', presented ideas about how to better protect children and young people through State regulation instead of prohibition. He argued that the prohibition paradigm instead of reducing the harms from drugs, has actually increased it, either by the availability of impure or contaminated drugs in the market or through the violence associated with actors trying to control the illlict drug market.

Damon Barrett concluded the discussion by saying that drug policy tends to obscure the human side of it. Underpinned by concepts and such as in "prison populations" and "seizures" drug control hides from our view the people targeted by drug control, and as a result we might run the risk of overlooking the harms caused by inadequate policies.

To listen to the seminar, click here

To download the book, click here