The world’s most prolific cannabis dealer and a right wing columnist debate the war on drugs

Just over a month ago I attended a debate (at Bristol Festival of Ideas) between Howard Marks, the man who at one point was the world’s most prolific cannabis dealer – importing hundreds of tons of cannabis in to the UK, the US and mainland Europe, and Peter Hitchens, the Mail on Sunday’s columnist who is so right wing that he is practically a parody. 

The audio from the talk is now available, if the MP3 does not load above click here to listen. Both speakers receive ten minutes each before there is almost an hour of questions and debate. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that the pair do not come to an agreement and the points made are relatively predictable but this does not stop the debate being fantastically entertaining. I should probably note that the following night I went to hear Howard Marks speak on stage alone, a night which I found somewhat more entertaining still.

I won’t subject you to more diatribe on the topic here, as one blog post (or one debate for that matter) can not possibly cover the topic but if you’d like to read more from me on the topic of this debate you can search my former blog for posts with the tag: The Confederacy of Dunces, a tag which I hope makes my position clear enough.