DURHAM, N.H. - The University of New Hampshire announces the 2012-2013 Saul O Sidore Memorial Lecture Series "The Drug Wars: Views from the South and the North," which will examine the global anti-drug campaign. All lectures are free and open to the public.

"The topic of drug policy generates substantial debate, and this debate can be quite heated. This lecture series aims to enrich this debate by giving participants the tools they need to understand the many dimensions of the global anti-drug campaign," said Mary Fran Malone, associate professor of political science at UNH.

The series aims to address a number of important questions:

• Why is the United States so committed to punitive and militarized drug control policies, when they cost so much and have achieved so little?
• What does the United States aim to achieve with its drug control measures?
• What are the domestic and international costs associated with these tactics?
• How have other countries sought to control the pernicious effects of drugs and violence on individuals and society?
• How can societies insulate themselves from the harmful effects of drug use, while not creating more harmful problems in the form of violence and organized crime?

Sept. 27
Thursday, 4 p.m. MUB Theater II
The War against Drugs in the U.S.: Fiscal and Racial Consequences
Jon Hurwitz, University of Pittsburgh

Oct. 18
Thursday, 4 p.m. MUB Theater II
It Really Does Take a Village: León's Holistic Approach to Combating Drugs and Violence
Braulio Espinoza, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, León

Nov. 1
Thursday, 4 p.m. MUB Theater II
Mexico's Drug Wars
Jon Hiskey, Vanderbilt University

Nov. 15
Thursday, 4:00pm MUB Theater II
The Dog that Doesn't Bark: Nicaragua's Resilience to Crime and the Drug Trade
Francisco Bautista Lara, Nicaraguan Author and Public Security Expert

Additional lectures are planned for the spring semester and will be announced at a later date.

The Saul O Sidore Memorial Lecture Series was established in 1965 in memory of Saul O Sidore of Manchester, New Hampshire. The purpose of the series is to offer the University community and the state of New Hampshire programs that raise critical and sometimes controversial issues facing our society. For more information go to www.unh.edu/humanities-center or call 862-4356.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.

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