The QS world university rankings game is getting ever more ridiculous. I am now getting emails from universities I have never heard of, begging me to big them up.

Interesting estimate of the number of people in the USA who inject drugs, with substantial fall since 2018. Our estimates in the UK are years out of date.

After Canada legalized cannabis, police caught more drunk drivers

Please can we stop using journal rankings?

Farage told to apologise for his racism www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Latest monthly visa application figures are out. Skilled workers? Still dropping. Health & care workers? Still dropping. Slow clap.

"Migrants who came to the UK on skilled work visas in 2022-23 will make a net contribution of £47bn to the public finances over their lifetime, according to new estimates from the government’s Migration Advisory Committee." Not surprising, but some observations (1/n) www.ft.com/content/10da...

How and why consensus fractured at the 2024 session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs: an exploratory study of international drug policy constellations using social network analysis and qualitative comparative analysis. @deppjournal.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... £0 #OA

Can we crowd fund a defamation case against Farage (and Tice) for calling his accusers liars? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Not hard to slow HIV spread among/from people who inject drugs. 1 start needle syringe programs early, expand rapidly to scale; 2 expand & liberalise drug treatment esp opioid substitution; 3 provide peer based information to PWIDs; 4 establish organisations run by & for PWIDs @aivl.bsky.social

On #WorldAIDSDay, remember that people are still catching HIV from sharing injecting equipment. And this can be prevented. #HarmReduction

Comically self-destructive www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Great news for very many families.

Great news - The deadline for the 2026 Conference of the International Society for the Study of #DrugPolicy in Perth Australia has been extended to 15 December. 🦘 To submit you abstracts go to issdp.org

New: Three new ex-pupils come forward, on the record, to say Farage's racism as a teenager was targeted, persistent and nasty. Farage has denied targeting any individuals - but two of the men tell us they recall Farage abusing Peter Ettedgui. w/ Dan Boffey, @drblacklock.bsky.social

I was at Nigel Farage's sister school in the 1980s, with several Jewish pupils. Taunting them about the holocaust was not part of our 'banter'.

Farage is, and always was, a racist.

The SSA is now accepting applications for full-time PhD studentships. Funding will include a stipend (living allowance), tuition fees, and research and training costs. Find out how to apply: tinyurl.com/y3n5dvk2

ISSDP is running a panel at the #OC24 Conference on Global Organized Crime on “Advancing global drug market analysis.” Chaired by Professor Peter Reuter and featuring leading #DrugMarket and #DrugPolicy scholars. Please join us: oc24.heysummit.com/talks/advanc...

Idea for the next King's Speech: a law that forces rail operators to accept each other's tickets in cases of delays.

I blame the people who voted for Johnson, especially the Tory MPs who elected him as their leader, despite knowing he was an incompetent liar.

Fall in opioid deaths in BC is more likely down to a shift from injection to inhalation than policing.

NEW DATA: This briefing provides updates to key data from our flagship report, The Global State of Harm Reduction. The update also summarises funding and policy developments since the 2024 report.

Joined the running picked today with @ucu.org.uk @sheffielduni.bsky.social. Oldest (and slowest) there. It takes real #solidarity to run up Sheffield hills to the management school.

Whatever the charge, the death penalty is wrong. #Bangladesh

Solidarity on the @ucu.org.uk picked line @sheffielduni.bsky.social School of Law. No to compulsory redundancies!

📣 Trinity College Dublin is hiring 2 #tenuretrack Assistant Professors in Sociology. 👉 Environmental Sociology. Closing Dec 1 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPH703/a... 👉 Gender and Sexuality. Closing Dec 2 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPI055/a... @tcdsociology.bsky.social @isa-rc28.bsky.social @eaps.bsky.social

I am hiring a 2-year post-doc, starting Sep 1 2026 econjobmarket.org/positions/12... If you are interested in culture, gender and masculinity, please apply and join me in Sydney!

My favorite conference is accepting abstracts! The annual meeting of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy (@issdrugpolicy.bsky.social) will be in Perth 🦘 June 30-July 2, 2026 Abstracts due Nov 30. Submit here: www.issdp.org Please spread the word. Thx!

Will anyone miss PCCs?

It takes an obscene amount of hubris to lecture the BBC when you have The Telegraph’s record on truth-telling. Some of the paper’s errors this year are so bad they’re almost laughable 👇🏻

The BBC scandal inhabits a parallel universe in which it is not absolutely standard practice to edit political speeches to show just the most newsworthy bits.

What an absolute shower...

How "earned progression" could backfire @thehowardleague.bsky.social explains how the Government's earned progression plan could inadvertently result in increasing the numbers of people in prison. www.russellwebster.com/how-earned-p...

UK's stupid immigration policy doing as badly as Trump in attracting income and skills from international students.

Greens and Lib Dems must continue working together to beat the far right threat of Reform.

NEU: “It is beyond belief that this government’s response to students disengaging in secondary isn’t to consider the impacts on curriculum caused by the tests that already exist in primary but rather is to suggest an additional test in year 8." www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Looks like the Tories have belatedly realised that aping the National Front is not a good look.

No one takes strike action lightly, but staff at Sheffield’s universities have been pushed too far. ⚠️ 28 days of strikes announced at University of Sheffield & Sheffield Hallam over job cuts. Education workers deserve better. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1423...

If we're living through a technological revolution, why is econonic growth so low? Why is productivity not increasing?

New @addictionjournal.bsky.social editorial on the licensing reforms currently being rushed through by the UK Government. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... The Call for Evidence closes on November 6th www.gov.uk/government/c...

We wrote an article explaining why you shouldn't put several variables into a regression model and report which are statistically significant - even as exploratory research. bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/4/1/.... How did we do?

About a tenth of relationships in the UK are mixed race. X seems full of people who think they are the only relationships in TV advertising. This suggests people filter out the ones featuring white families, and then trigger themselves into anger if a mixed race couple appear.

Open access: Risk versus pleasure: understanding changing attitudes of non- and light-drinking young people as they age by @amypennay.bsky.social @gabrielcaluzzi.bsky.social @megancook.bsky.social @michaellivingston.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

In Wales, over 60s get free bus travel, subsidised train travel, free eye tests, free dental check ups if you get an N.H.S. dentist. Oh, free prescriptions, as well as free hospital parking. We'll vote reform because the Labour led Senned have done nothing for us.

Yay. Priceless. The right column at the right time. And a gleefully English two fingers to the haters.

I voted today. No more real terms pay cuts! #wearetheuniversity @ucu.org.uk

Trump has now murdered 34 people in international waters. No one has any idea if any were criminals, and of course it doesn't matter, because it was a war crime to kill even a single one of them. Drug trafficking is a felony, but it's not a violent crime and isn't punishable by summary execution.

But will Eurostart restart services from Ebbsfleet and Ashford?

Phillipson: University tuition fees to rise with inflation, conditional on measures of quality of provision.