The 1st installment of Versus, The Google+ Debate Series

"To liberalise or prohibit, that is the question. And to answer it the masters of live debate have joined forces with the masters of web technology to create a never-seen-before combination of Oxford debating and Silicon Valley prowess."

(video below)

Host

• Jemima Khan

  Associate editor of the New Statesman and European editor-at-large for Vanity Fair

Chair

• Emily Maitlis

  Newsnight presenter

Making the case in favour of relaxing drug control

Making the case in favour of retaining drug control

Participants

• Louise Arbour

  Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, president of the International Crisis Group, and member of the Global Commission on Drugs Policy

• Julian Assange

  Founder of WikiLeaks (via Google+ Hangouts)

• Ian Blair

  Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner

• Russell Brand

  Actor, comedian and author (via Google+ Hangouts)

• Richard Branson

  Chairman of Virgin Group and member of the Global Commission on Drugs Policy

• Fernando Cardoso

  Former President of Brazil (via Google+ Hangouts)

• Sandeep Chawla

  Deputy Executive Director and Director of Research and Policy, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) (via Google+ Hangouts)

• Theodore Dalrymple

  Former prison doctor and author

• David Eagleman

  American neuroscientist and author (via Google+ Hangouts)

• Vicente Fox

  Former President of Mexico and member of the Club de Madrid (on Google+ Hangouts)

• Johann Hari

  Journalist and author

• Peter Hitchens

  Mail on Sunday columnist and author

• Nigel Keegan

  Investment banker, doctor and former military officer

• Bernard Kouchner

  Former French foreign minister

• Danny Kushlick

  Head of External Affairs, Transform Drug Policy Foundation (via Google+ Hangouts)

• Barry McCaffrey

  General, U.S. Army (Retired) and former Director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) from 1996 to 2001

• Neil McKeganey

  Director of Centre for Drug Misuse Research and author ofControversies in Drugs Policy and Practice

• Juan Manuel Santos

  President of the Republic of Colombia (via Google+ Hangouts)

• Steve Rolles

  Senior policy analyst at Transform Drug Policy Foundation, expert on drugs regulation

• Ed Vulliamy

  Author of Amexica: War along the Borderline, a book about the war along the US-Mexico border

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSrN2zIRwN8