Diary of Your Week: Difficult thoughts

Hi it’s Paul here, in the time I’ve been working here I established pretty early on that WHYS is privileged to have fantastic contributors and callers .

Is Mexico’s war on drugs getting out of control?

We’ve all heard about Mexico’s war on drugs, a fight between rival drug cartels and government forces. Ciudad Juarez remains Mexico’s murder capital and across the border in El Paso it’s also very dangerous. “It’s a war in which the president can’t claim victory, can’t pull out and which only gets worse” says Ioan Grillo from Time Magazine. He also says “Mexico’s drug war could become its Iraq”. So is it really this bad?

On air: Should there be a global drug policy now we’ve lost the war?

We are losing the war on drugs in almost every country according to a European Commission report out yesterday. There’s a major international conference in Vienna today to decide how the UN should to tackle the international drugs trade and according to the report the UN’s drug strategy has been a definite failure so far. So why is it so difficult to tackle the international drugs trade?

Talking Points for 30 July

Thanks Nelson for looking after us last night.

On to some ideas for today’s programme…

World Trade is dead, or at least it has fallen into a deep sleep.

Is the Tour de France a waste of time?

Same old same old in cycling’s most prestigious event. Arguably the race’s most exciting rider this year Ricardo Ricco tests positive for performance enhancing drugs. Every year there is a scandal. Every year we ask is the Tour de France dead? Is it?

Do celebrities get off too lightly for taking drugs?

The UN’s International Narcotics Control Board published its annual report today. One of the issues highlighted in this year’s wide-ranging report is the danger of young people being influenced by famous people who are caught taking drugs.

The report says that celebrities are all too often dealt with leniently, which in turn is sending out the wrong message to young people. Is that true?

Stories for Wednesday 5 March – OH, TX primaries

Iain here updating Peter’s post.. We find ourselves in the WHYS office this morning mulling over whether to devote the whole of today’s programme to the US election campaign, or to look for something else to talk about…