Living With the Enemy: Drugs

A highly entertaining and challenging programme from the Community Programme unit of the BBC. Under the access principle, an even-handed production in which the protagonists share the spotlight and inadvertently plead for the viewers' support. A fine example of intelligent, dialectical populist television. The programme is based on the premise that strong opinions are not always formed on the basis of first-hand experience. Each documentary in this life-swap format follows a different individual who is prepared to put their prejudices and pre-conceptions to the test by spending a week living with their ideological 'enemy' - people whose philosophies or lifestyle they despise. The result is a highly entertaining series combining issues with strong personalities and passionate debate. James Hellyer puts his hard-line position on drugs to the test when he spends a week with a pro-Cannabis collective in Luton. Devon-based James is a recent graduate who was elected chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association. He hopes for a career in politics or the clergy and is vehemently opposed to the legalization of cannabis. Not so, Glenn Jenkins, the spokesperson for Exodus who admits 'the only drug problem we seem to have is we keep running out.'