Suchergebnisse

Examines the hard line approach to drug control, an expansion of US and European drug policy, failure to reduce consumption and trafficking, and use of drug law enforcement to extend state authority and effect social and political control.

Whenever political reform has dominated the Japanese national agenda, the electoral system of the House of Representatives moved into the limelight. Kaifu Toshiki was the third prime minister attempting to reform the combination of multi-member districts and non-transferable single entry ballots, which many have blamed for the type of money-politics that appears to have fostered corruption and a decay of democratic principles. The article examines not only the relationship between the electoral system on the one hand and political misdemeanor on the other, but also analyzes the intraparty power struggles that eventually squashed Kaifu´s initiative and put an end to his tenure.

Theliterature on drugs in Africa includes policy statements by government officials which, by and large, follow the line set by international organisations created to design counter-measures to drug consumption and trafficking, such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) of the United Nations. At this level the debate revolves largely around the effectiveness of different preventative strategies; control programmes and the performance of agencies are evaluated, and authors often bewail the perversion of moral values in the countries concerned, while appeals for financial assistance figure frequently in the media. Much less well known are the oral traditions and the popular culture in which the drug users, traffickers, and barons are ascribed certain roles. I would like to compare the material contained in these different bodies of work with my own field observations from the drug 'scene' in both high and low density areas of Lagos.

This book describes the events, activities and negotiations leading up to the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on international drug policy. A range of respected authors from International institutions, academia and civil society organisations detail the background to the negotiations and the outcome; and possible future scenarios for continued reform and change at the High Level Review in 2019. The chapters include consideration of the positions taken by blocs and nation-states at all points on the prohibition reform continuum. Topics covered include discussions on the importance of human rights, access to essential medicines and the role played by cannabis in revealing the contradictions and divisions in both national and international contexts. The break-down of the previous international consensus on 'the world drug problem' is clearly described and analysed, as is the slow progress being made to the adoption of a human rights and health-based approach to currently illegal drugs. Consideration is also given to the nations and arguments which continue to defend prohibition and its repressive impacts on national populations, and the prioritising of geo-politics over population health this represents in practice. There are lessons and examples here for international politics and national policy reform.

Intro; COLLAPSE OF THE GLOBALORDER ON DRUGS; Contents; Abbreviations; About the Editors; About the Authors; Foreword; Acknowledgements; Introduction; The Clash of Values: 'Drug-free World' versus Human Rights; Quibbling over Indicators: Producing the Evidence Base; Drugs as Medicine or Menace: Palliative Care and Cannabis; Defending the Status Quo: Cost and Benefits; Radical Reformers: Latin America; Moderate Reformers: Europe; The United States: Giant without Compass; Caught in the Process: West Africa; The Evaporation of the Moral Authority of the Drug Control System

PurposeThe self‐reports of bullies or victims of workplace bullying appear to result in confused responses that fail to clarify who is doing what to whom. The research reported in this paper aimed to examine how staff from human resources and occupational health conceptualized and assessed cases of alleged bullying.Design/methodology/approachThe research relied on semi‐structured interviews with managers, human resource staff, occupational health staff, mediators, trade union representatives, and staff members who were both victims and alleged perpetrators of bullying. The staff contributing came from an NHS trust, two universities and a criminal justice agency.FindingsStaff were reluctant to document or reveal information about the frequency and severity of bullying within their services. Despite this, three key themes emerged from the interviews that seemed to inform individual and organisational responses: the ethos of professionalism, the ambiguous role of human resources and the presumption of mutuality.Research limitations/implicationsReliance on interpretations of workplace bullying that defend both individual staff members and the organization had implications for victims. By not naming reported problems as bullying, the organization could limit its responsibility to act. Failure to identify and document bullying limited the research but also poorly served victimized individuals.Practical implicationsServices require training to help them move beyond a presumption that the self‐reports of bullies are a reliable source of assessment data.Social implicationsEffective identification and assessment of bullying situations would be the first step towards reducing the psychological impact of the problem. Experience of workplace bullying is highly correlated with health and mental health problems of targeted individuals.Originality/valueThis paper capitalizes on insights from the field of domestic violence in highlighting the need for clarity about the nature of coercive control. The paper will be valuable to individuals and organisations charged with the task of tackling workplace bullying.

While cannabis has been widely used in the UK for over 50 years, it is only in recent decades that domestic cultivation has become established. Public concern, media reporting and policing policy has emphasised the role of profit motivated criminal organisations often working on a large scale and with coerced labour. However, increasingly, another population are growing for medical reasons, to help themselves and others treat or manage difficult, poorly understood, or incurable conditions. Our study sought to further understand the motives, techniques and interactions of cannabis cultivators through interviews with 48 growers and supplementary ethnographic work. As well as those motivated to grow for personal use, social and commercial supply purposes we identified a cohort growing to provide themselves and others with cannabis used for therapeutic purposes. This paper draws primarily on interviews with a sub-group of sixteen medically-motivated growers who were not only involved in treatment, but also embraced the label "activist". Rather than develop techniques of deception they were organising to effect a change in legislation. Rejecting the image of criminal perpetrators, they presented themselves as victims of unjust government policy, an indifferent medical establishment, and brutal and immoral criminal markets. Through cultivation, association, self-healing and apomedication, they have found voice and are shifting the debate over the status of growers and of cannabis itself. The ambiguity of their position as both producers and patients challenges the assumptions underlying legal distinctions between suppliers and users, with potentially profound implications for policy.

The search for a new drug policy framework : from the Barbados plan of action to the Ganja Commission / Axel Klein -- Criminalizing cultural practice : the case of ganja in Jamaica / Barry Chevannes -- Drug courts in Jamaica : means to an end or end in itself? / Anthony Harriott and Marlyn Jones -- Drugs and the prison system : impact of legislative changes on the prison crises in the commonwealth Caribbean region / Wendy Singh -- Rethinking privatisation, the state and illegal drugs in the commonwealth Caribbean / Philip Nanton -- Drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation in Jamaica and the Caribbean / Howard Gough -- What's the hook? Diary of a drop-in centre or rehabilitation before abstinence / Marcus Day -- Cayman drug council : practising harm reduction in a zero-tolerance society / Catherine Chestnut -- Ethical dilemmas in drug research : pitfalls of gathering sensitive information in the Caribbean context / Jennifer Hillebrand -- Illicit drug markets in the Caribbean : analysis of information on drug flows through the region / Michael Platzer with Flavio Mirella and Carlos Resa Nestares -- The Ganja industry and alternative development in St Vincent and the Grenadines / Axel Klein.

Abstract
Diagnosing a gap in our knowledge on populist phenomena in East Asian democracies, especially the lack of attention paid to the region by comparative studies, the organisers of the online lecture series 'Populism in East Asian Democracies' (PinEAD) brought together small but substantial research on East Asia by inviting presentations by nine experts, three each on Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Their findings showed how different phenomena and actors analysed as populists in East Asian democracies are from those in Europe or the Americas. They also highlighted how heterogeneous the group of politicians referred to as 'East Asian populists' is. While, on an abstract level, most East Asian populists are similar, in that they appeal to voters discontented with the democratically elected ruling parties and executives and promise to govern in a way more favourable to 'the people', they do so in ways that differentiate them from the standard style of political campaigning and rhetoric in their respective country.