drug policy alliance in edinburgh we go to dr ian all over he's a consultant for the united nations office on drugs and crime and in london we have sebastian seville the executive director of release the u.k. center of expertise on drugs the law and human rights and another member of our crosstalk team on the hunger or a gentleman crosstalk rules are in effect that means you can jump in any time to respond to a panel member first of all i'd like to go to ethan in new york after forty years a trillion dollars has been spent and hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost during what has been called the war on drugs is out war a complete failure or a sliding scale here. well let's call it about a ninety five percent failure you know it may it may be the case that treating a variety of drugs is illegal has reduced the number of people who use it by a modest amount but as with alcohol prohibition the united states is generated extraordinary levels of crime and violence and corruption in the u.s. and all around the world it's responsible for massive incarceration rates the united states and russia and

the new head of the united nations office on drugs and crime has promised to address the narcotics threat in afghanistan russian official said daughter of took over the key role last month our military analyst crucial things it's high time the war on narcotics was linked to the fight against corruption. the russian ambassador to the united kingdom you should note that has just been appointed as the u.n. and drug czar so now in his new capacity he will be leading the way of the international community he gains that narco terrorist threat that comes from afghanistan the russian voice has been mostly neglected by i said nato and international community so now it's point when russia has a unique opportunity to rid invigorated and to jumpstart the international efforts to build up and raise the world and wariness about the one and only threat that really is important significant and neglected in afghanistan and that is how to combat the most when they go back to and forgotten drug threat that directly keels ten times more civilian people in afghanistan and all across the world general petraeus

that report mr costa the deputy special representative to the united nations secretary general who's also the head of the un office on drugs and crime said the drugs were not the biggest problem can you imagine it given the fact that thirty or forty thousand russians were nearly dying of drug abuse today these figures a much higher europe also has a high death toll from drugs terrorism well before the u.s. troops came to afghanistan we had absolutely no trustworthy information about the taliban participation in raids in the territories or central asian states. in one thousand nine. thousand tickets on the contrary we know that those militants infiltrated from the territory if you started to where they'd come from northern afghanistan or which at that time was being controlled by the northern alliance and the u.s. ally against the taliban regime. in july and august on another central asian country was hit by massive ethnic clashes with hundred stat is there any danger that we could could see a repeat. you know back in april i warned about this kind of scenario for southern star which rest of all the situation in southern ky