In the grips of a drug crisis, why Portugal took a radical approach in 2001 and became the first country in the world to decriminalise all drugs. Also searching for those who disappeared during apartheid rule in South Africa, how mistakes with the initial production of the polio vaccine made thousands of children ill in 1995, plus the black women who helped ... Show More
Jun 28
Robert Kennedy's funeral train and the opening of the Medellin Metro
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service, all related to trains and journeys which have helped to shape our world.Our guest Nicky Gardner, travel writer and co-author of Europe by Rail: the Definitive Guide, discusses t ... Show More
50m 58s
Jul 2021
Crime World Extra: The 'Cocaine Goldrush'
A half tonne of cocaine disguised as charcoal, which landed in Rotterdam, was seized at the port after an intelligence-led operation headed up by Irish gardai.
The drugs, worth more than €30 million, were destined for the Irish market where a generation of young and educated coca ... Show More
30m 45s
May 2021
Why a British MP was filmed taking mescaline
# Warning: This programme contains scenes of drug use #In 1955, a British member of parliament, Christopher Mayhew, took the hallucinogenic drug mescaline and had his experience filmed by the BBC. The drug was legal at the time and the experiment was supervised by the pyschiatris ... Show More
11m 22s
Apr 2020
Lina Britto, "Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia's First Drug Paradise" (U California Press, 2020)
In her recently published book Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia's First Drug Paradise (University of California Press 2020), Lina Britto tells the forgotten story of the first boom in illicit drugs in the Greater Magdalena region of Colombia. This unknown history, th ... Show More
1h 8m