Jamie Bartlett asks if new research into psychedelic drugs will lead to them being accepted as mainstream medical treatment - or whether their controversial history will prove insuperable. After lying dormant for decades, scientific research into psychedelics is experiencing a renaissance. Academics at some of the world’s leading institutions are exploring the potential of these drugs to treat a variety of medical conditions, from addiction to anxiety and depression. The findings so far are astonishing. Admittedly the sample sizes are small and there are methodological problems, yet it appears that psychedelics can help where other treatments before them have failed. So is there any chance that substances like LSD and psilocybin – the psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms – will ever become accepted medical treatments? We have been here before. In the 1960s, researchers published thousands of scientific papers on the potential medical benefits of psychedelics and there were f...
Extra armed police have been put on the streets of Dublin after two murders within just four days of each other. It's being blamed on a flare up of gang wars more akin to Sicily. The first involved gunmen carrying Ak47s disguised as police who burst into a respectable hotel packed with people. The next was assumed to be a swift reprisal: a man was shot several times in his own home. Melanie Abbott travels to Dublin to find out the background to this bitter gang feud and talk to the community caught in the middle. Producer: Anna Meisel.
How did Jimmy Savile get away with it when so many people appear to have known so much? Media and Arts Correspondent David Sillito tracks down former presenters, producers and BBC executives who worked with Savile. On the day that the Dame Janet Smith Review is published, some speak publicly for the first time and reveal a shocking list of missed warning signs. Producers: Steven Wright Researcher: Kirsteen Knight You can find details of organisations which offer advice and support with sexual abuse by visiting bbc.co.uk/actionline.
This drive for changing the way the NHS operates has been frequently used by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt as the reason why a change to junior doctor and consultant contracts is needed. But what does it actually mean? John Ware explores what a seven-day NHS would look like, what evidence there is that it's needed, and, crucially, whether we can afford it. Reporter: John Ware Producer: Hannah Barnes Researcher: Kirsteen Knight.
The New Hampshire primary is the first proper vote of the American Presidential election. Finally, after all the debates, polls and bluster, voters get to choose their preferred candidate for president. This year, New Hampshire is seen by many as the moment of truth for the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. The polls say he is on his way to the nomination, but the pundits are almost universally sceptical. Conservative satirical journalist PJ O'Rourke is a long time watcher of the Republican Party and a veteran at covering elections. He is also a long term resident of New Hampshire, a state so small where you do not have to go looking for the candidates - they will find you. In the last week of the New Hampshire primary, PJ O'Rourke goes on the campaign trail to discover whether voters will really choose a candidate who breaks all the rules of US politics.
Lord Bramall, a former head of the British army, has now been told he will face no further action by the Metropolitan Police following thirteen months of investigation into allegations of paedophilia. The Met has so far refused to apologise for the way its inquiry, "Operation Midland", was handled. In his first broadcast interview, Lord Bramall speaks to BBC journalist Alistair Jackson. The programme also hears from Met insiders and other key witnesses. Their accounts raise serious questions about how the investigation was run and why the allegations against Lord Bramall were not dismissed earlier. Reporter: Alistair Jackson Producer: Anna Meisel Researcher: Kirsteen Knight.
Tommy Robinson was the most high profile figure in the English Defence League. Then he apparently abandoned his hostility towards Islam and aligned himself with the counter extremism think tank Quilliam. Now he is back on the anti-Islam beat, helping to launch the UK branch of the German pressure group Pegida, with the first rally planned to take place in Birmingham. Reporter and Birmingham resident Adrian Goldberg spends time with Robinson and gets him to meet some of his fiercest foes in the city. Producer: Smita Patel Researcher: Holly Topham Editor: Innes Bowen.
It was a death in Britain like no other seen in living memory. The gaunt and agonised face of the former Russian security service officer, Alexander Litvinenko, stared out of television screens and newspaper front pages in November 2006 as his painful end approached in London's University College Hospital. His poisoning by a radioactive isotope was a bizarre death. It baffled the experts and transfixed a horrified nation. As the public inquiry into this mysterious death got under way in 2014, reporter Peter Marshall investigated the evidence suggesting that the Russian state might have been behind the fatal poisoning. Eighteen months later, as the inquiry publishes its findings, The Report returns to the story. This is an updated version of a programme first broadcast on 7 August 2014. Reporter: Peter Marshall Producer: Simon Coates.
Should Labour MPs be scared of Jeremy Corbyn-supporting movement Momentum? The group says it is attempting to build on the the groundswell of support for Jeremy Corbyn. Still in its infancy it has already drawn the ire of Labour MPs and activists and sections of the press. They've been compared to the Militant Tendency that took over Liverpool Council in the early 1980's. They've been accused of aspiring to deselect disloyal MPs and have been described as a hard left rabble. Some Labour MPs are worried about their rise, but what is Momentum and what do they want? Stephen Bush of the New Statesman has been to Walthamstow, home of just one of these new groups, to find out.
In 2014 the prime minister said that Afghan security forces were now ready to take over from NATO to secure Afghanistan. Yet 2015 was the most violent in the 14 year conflict with record numbers of civilian and Afghan security force casualties. With the official end of NATO led combat operations, the Taliban have resorted to a new tactic of mass attacks. A US Department of Defence report acknowledges that despite being less well armed or trained, the Taliban have outmanoeuvred the Afghan security forces, recapturing several districts in Helmand province once held by the British and Americans at such a high cost in blood and treasure. The Taliban even captured the country's fifth largest city, Kunduz, for a while last autumn. Meanwhile Al Qaeda re-established training camps, and ISIS now has a foothold in the country. Denying Afghanistan to jihadists targeting the West has always been the bottom line justification for expending so much blood and treasure. In The Report this week John...