Archbishop Oscar Romero school in Edmonton. Photo via Flickr user Oscar Romero

One year ago, a mother in Edmonton had her seven-year-old child saunter up to her and explain that she, in fact, wasn't her son but instead her daughter.

A few months later that same child asked her mother to end her life.

The young girl, whose name will not be used in this article to protect her identity, is an attendee of the publicly funded Edmonton Catholic School District (ECSD). Unfortunately, the Catholic School Boards in the Greater Edmonton Area don't have the greatest track records when it comes to their transgender students and staff.

In 2008 Jan Buterman, a transgender substitute teacher, was fired from the St. Albert Catholic School District. The reason he was given was that his gender transition didn't align with church teachings. Just last year, Buterman won the right to argue a wrongful dismissal case in front of the Canadian human rights tribunal, but in the intervening seven years, it seems that the area's Catholic School Districts haven't progressed very much.

This VICE Canada Reports deals with Canadian access to trans healthcare.

After learning about her child's gender, her mother decided that the best plan would be to have a meeting with school officials and religious leaders in regards to her daughter's transition. It was the start of what would become an extremely long process all centered on the location of where her daughter would pee.

In this meeting, which the mother recorded, she found herself discussing her daughter's gender with an Edmonton Catholic priest and there is one particular exchange that stands out.

"I'm just wondering, what are some of the disciplinary measures that are provided at home," Father Dean Dowle asked the mother. "Provisions, parameters, boundaries?"

The child's mother took pause before replying to Dowle's question.

"Father, may I ask you when you knew you were a boy? There's no difference with my child."

After the meeting the mother filed a human rights report against the school for banning her daughter from using the girls' restroom. A day later, on May 15, the decision was made for her daughter to only use the school's gender neutral washroom. The school board was adamant they had done their research and the decision was a sufficient action.

They urged the mother to "see the good in this situation."

But even though this was deemed the "final decision," it was merely the catalyst for this discrimination to come to light publicly. The decision prompted ECSD school board trustee Patricia Grell to write an impassioned blog post about the fact that she thought it was out of line with Catholic compassion. The blog was picked up by local media and pressure was almost immediately put on the ECSD. Under scrutiny, they quickly backpedaled and decided that the little girl would actually be able to use the girls' washroom. But there was still a catch.

Shortly after the decision was made, the mother received a call from a reporter telling her that when her little girl would go to the girls' washroom, an escort was required. No other child in the school needed an escort.

"I said to myself, no way, no way the school would be dumb enough to do that. Sure enough, I called my daughter over and I asked, 'When you go to the bathroom what happens?'" the mother told VICE. "And she said 'Oh, the teacher picks one or two girls and they have to come with me. I asked, 'What happens if you want to go on your own?' and she said 'No, I'm not allowed, one of the two girls have to come with me.'"

It was around this time that the little girl told her mom that she didn't want to be alive anymore.

Infighting over this issue in the ECSD board of trustees broke out when Patricia Grell decided to spearhead a new transgender policy. Over the summer, Grell consulted with psychologists, transgender activists, and doctors in order to draft the policy. But at the same time across town, the school's bishop was busy drafting his own parallel policy. One that would be more "aligned" to traditional Catholic values.

"I think what we're seeing is a lot of interference from unelected bishops who are trying to make school boards policy and operational decisions," Dr. Kris Wells, Faculty Director for Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services told VICE. "That really calls into question for a lot of peoplewhy do we elect Catholic school board trustees if they actually don't have the power to make decisions."

"Bishops are not accountable to the public."

This issue came to a head on September 15 when an open house meeting was held and a discussion about the district's transgender policies was scheduled to take place. Easy peasy, right? This group of adults could easily set aside their own thoughts and biases to come up with a policy that would protect at-risk children, right? Nope, the ECSD instead decided that it's never too early for children to learn how much some people truly, truly suck.

It was anarchy.

This seemingly simple subject was just too much for these people to handle. The trustees screamed at each other, some broke down crying, one even tried to have a member of the audience escorted out for calling her homophobic in an email, (a claim she has since recanted).

One trustee, Larry Kowalczyk, is a perfect example of what's wrong in this debate. After the meeting, he told the CBC, "I see that as a mental disorder, my faith sees it as a mental disorder." It's a notion that appears to be common among the Edmonton Catholic community. Recently, Father Matthew-Anthony Hysel, an Edmonton Catholic Priest, penned an opinion piece for the Edmonton Journal defending the notion that transgender people are mentally ill.

"By self-identification as transgender, or even having gender reassignment surgery, one already admits of this 'mental disorder' by implication because she or he wishes to 'reorder' her or his biological sex to her or his gender identity, arguably a mental state," Hysel wrote.

The hysteria kept on keeping on after this, but this time the police got involved. A mischief complaint was filed against Patricia Grell and fellow trustee, and now board chair, Marilyn Bergstra who, like Grell, is pro trans rights. It was launched after Grell and Bergstra mistakenly erased a portion of recorded board meeting after their private conversation was caught on the same tape. Grell and Bergstra were informed via email on October 13th, nearly two weeks after the incident and two hours before the much anticipated second meeting in regards to trans rights.

"It's very unfair," Grell told the CBC. "I think this is a witch hunt."

As anticipated the Catholics went at it again on October 13th. The whole thing was a complete and utter clusterfuck, running at almost five hours long.

In the meeting, Kowalcyk attempted to pass an amendment reflecting the Bishop's views that, after a long pre-ramble, said "to attempt 'gender transitioning' is contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church." When that didn't pass he then tried to have the policy postponed indefinitely. But he really outdid himself when he quoted noted dickbag Jack Fonseca, a strategist at the anti-abortion Campaign Life Coalition, as a way to add some weight to his arguments. He said that if the board passed the policy they would be committing "serious heresy" against the bishop and Catholic church. He then went on to essentially say, while attributing it to Fonseca, that because suicide statistics are higher among LGBTQ youth we are leading them to death when we support their decision. These are but a few of the many repugnant things that Kowalyk said during the meeting.

Now to reiterate, this man isn't your shitty uncle that spouts off about "the gays" and "the Muslims" at a family holiday but an elected official responsible for the safety of many children within his district. Thankfully the ECSD Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation policy went on to pass it's first reading.

Kowalczyk was the only one to vote against it.

The whole issue was such an embarrassment that David Eggen, Alberta's Education Minister, announced that he would be issuing an expert advisor, on government dime, to help the board make it to and through their next meeting.

Back in the spring, when the mother of the girl first heard her daughter couldn't use the washroom, she asked what were the reasons that led the ECSD to this decision. She was given two answers, the first was that her daughter being in the bathroom violates the biological rights of the females, the second was that it violates their safety.

"I told them 'you better drop that defence pretty quick as it sounds like you're implying my child is a predator, which she isn't,'" the girl's mother said. "And two, you're stating in that statement that transgender people are predators which they are not."

Numerous studies have concluded transgender youth are far far far more likely to be assaulted than to assault people and are in fact one of the most at-risk groups in our society. So maybe it's time for this Bishop and the Catholic Church to start focusing on actual proven threats to the children's safety.

Maybe it's time for them to get on the right side of history.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

In the words of the great American poet Flo Rida, it's going down for real: Joe Biden is gonna run for president. Definitely. Or at least probably. On Monday, Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan Boyle tweeted, "I have a very good source close to Joe that tells me VP Biden will run for Prez," setting off a flurry of speculation about Biden's forthcoming announcement. The Washington Post even erroneously published a shell story with the headline, "Biden to Launch a Presidential Campaign." The following day, CNN reported that Biden's team is in the process of interviewing potential campaign staffers. Meanwhile, ABC learned that a Biden associate has been looking into renting office space in downtown DC that might serve as Biden's campaign HQ.

Clearly, people are interested in Biden running. Hell, he's polling at 17 percentthird overall, behind Hillary Clinton's 47 percent and Bernie Sanders's 25 percentand he's not officially in the race yet. An Ipsos/Reuters poll released last week found that nearly half of Democratsincluding some that don't want Biden to winat least want the Veep to take a shot at it. And Biden himself sure as hell sounds like someone who's running for president.

So, for the sake of argument, let's just assume that Biden is about to launch his campaign. The question then is, what happens if he wins?

A few weeks ago, I called up Duke University's Michael Munger, a political science professor and head of the school's Philosophy, Politics, and Economics program to chat about what a Biden candidacy might look like. With Biden's campaign launch seems imminent, Munger has given his thoughts on what America's avuncular vice president might do if he were handed the keys to the Oval Office.

VICE: Let's say Biden wins. What does he talk about in his inaugural address?
Michael Munger: If you look at his policy positions, they tend to be moderate, progressive positions. He doesn't have any encompassing vision. He mostly would play defense, I think.

Before we get into that, we need to make some assumptions of what would happen in the House and the Senate Obama wouldn't even have called.

I think Biden would be in some ways a much more effective legislative leader than Obama has been, and that's probably what I would emphasize if I were him. Let's try to get some things passed to help the country, not too many specifics. In a way, it's a veiled threat, saying, "You'll need to work with me or I'll use my veto pen."

Image via the White House on Flickr

So from a legislative standpoint he would be more productive than Obama has been?
Well Obama frittered away everything he had. He had the House and the Senate in Democratic hands because people were so sick of the Republicans. Then the Democrats interpreted people's revulsion towards the Republicans as support for the Democratic platform. They lost the house in 2010 by overplaying their hand. I don't think Biden would do that because he isn't grandiose in the way Obama is.

Talk a bit more about this idea of people misinterpreting revulsion of the other party for love for their own party.
Well there's an asymmetry in the way we access information. If I'm a politician and say, "Look at me, this is good," you think, "Eh, OK, you're a politician, of course you're gonna say that." If I say, "My opponent takes a hammer and kills babies then barbeques and eats them," you'll at least pay attention to that. The problem is both parties end up running negative campaignseach of them say the other is unqualified, and voters believe them. The people that are really motivated to vote are the ones that are persuaded that the other side, whatever it is, is Satan. For most of the 19th century it was open seasonpoliticians said awful things about each other. We have returned to a situation where you try to motivate your voters by scaring them.

If President Biden were to get a curveballsay some country develops a nuclear weapon, or the economy tankshow would he react?
I don't think he has that many foreign policy interests. He has quite a bit of experiencehe's watched quite a bit. I've tried to think what his great initiatives are and what things he would want, and I don't think that he's ever talked about that stuff. To be fair, he's been vice president for a long time now and as "Cactus Jack" Nance once said when he was vice president, "This office isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit."

Image via the White House on Flickr

Would Biden's age be an issue if he were president?
He would be 74 when he was sworn in. What if he's incapacitated? What if he lacks the vigor? What if he's taking naps at meetings while they're talking about national defense? Seventy-four is old. It's not incredibly old, but it's too old. It's a big drawback particularly when we've had a president who could have been his son. It seems there's been a generational passing of the torch. It's a little hard for our uncle to say, "It's my turn."

Didn't Reagan start falling asleep towards the end of his presidency?
Of course. Yes. Well, given Reagan's second term, that was probably a good thing.

Which presidency would Biden's look the most like?
Well in age and avuncularity, Reagan. You probably remember in 1984, the debate with Mondale, Reagan said, "I promise to not use my opponent's age and youth against him." You sort of play that and I think Biden could do that. He's funny, he's fun to talk to, he tells jokes, and he owns the fact that he's an old guy and has a lot of experience. As for his presidency, it's tempting for me to compare him to Truman. Truman had been vice president after Nance resigned. Truman had been a senator, was a wise-cracker, often said things that were caustic, and had some trouble with the media as a result.

On VICE News: Jim Webb Quits Democratic Primary but Hints at Independent Bid for President

Would someone who fits that personality archetype be able to stand up against, say, Vladimir Putin?
I don't think Biden lacks toughness. He lacks considered judgment. I think Biden is a pretty tough guy. As long as he is advised, I don't think he would have any problem standing up against Putin.

But if Putin said something and someone asked Biden, "Well, Putin said this. What do you think?" What he should say is, "Well, we are reviewing that and we're not really sure what it means." He might just say, "We're gonna send ships!" The generals would put their heads in their hands and say, "Shut up!" When you're a senator you can say stuff like that. When you're a president and you say something and don't do it, that's disastrous.

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Giving in to the teary pleas of his colleagues, Paul Ryan said Tuesday that he will run for Speaker of the Housebut only on one condition. According to news reports, Ryan told Republicans at a closed-door meeting Tuesday night that he will only run as something called a "unity candidate," which means that before he even puts his name on the ballot, he wants the endorsement of every major Republican caucus.

Why would he insist on such endorsements in advance, instead of letting the usual voting process run its course? Because being House Speaker is apparently a soul-sucking, thankless job, and no one in the Republican Party wants to do it. "Unity," in this case, means a bridge between the two warring factions within the Republican Party: the increasingly powerful faction of hardline conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus, and the Establishment Republicans who can't figure out how to get control of the lunatics they work with.

The latter group is known for habits like compromising in order to achieve acceptable political aims rather than resorting to brinksmanship. For instance, this morning, Boehner signaled that he was ready to make a deal with House Democrats that would raise the debt ceiling in order to avoid a government shutdown.

Freedom Caucus Republicans, by contrast, have staked their reputation on refusing to back down, like the time they vowed not to sign any spending bill that would include money for Planned Parenthood. The bill that finally got signed didn't fund Planned Parenthood, technically, but also it didn't defund it, so on paper there was no compromise.

Ryan is not a member of the Freedom Caucus, and has lost Republican points in the past by doing stuff like voting in favor of a bill that banned workplace discrimination against LGBT people, and running to be Mitt Romney's vice president. But he knows that without the Freedom Caucus' support, he will likely go the way of Boehner.

Ryan's communications director Brendan Buck tweeted Tuesday that he didn't expect an answer by the end of the night. But according to Bloomberg, Ryan wants an answer from the caucuses by Fridayand that if he gets the go-ahead, he'll reportedly be "all in."

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Detail from a 1781 painting by Jacques-Louis David depicting the former Roman general Belisarius begging for alms.

Thinking of yourself as a good person is one of the basicluxuries of modern life. If someone has the chutzpah to ask you what makes you "good," you can tell them about how you sometimes give to charity, or how you would give tocharity if you could, or how you rarely lie or steal, or how you havegood reasons for lying or stealing, or how you never hurt anyone onpurpose, or how the people you hurt are bad people. If you sometimes don'thelp someone when you could have, or decide to spend $50 on drinks in a single nightrather than donating it to a worthy cause, well, you deserve itafter all,you're a good person.

The tradeoff for assuming yourself to be fundamentally good isthat you have to insulate yourself from the horrible things going on in theworld. That is, when you hear about war or sick children or homeless peopledying because they don't have blankets, you have to think to yourself, Not my problem. It sounds callous whenput so baldly, but the alternative is to turn yourself into an open empathetic wound, perpetually contemplating the sum total of suffering on the planet andasking yourself what you are doingor not doingto alleviate it. Living thatway would require reorienting your entire existence. It would mean that every unnecessary purchase you make would be taking food from starving people you could have donated to instead. Simple pleasures would become stained with guilt. In all likelihood, you would have to ignore your own happiness and comfort. Being a good personwould mean not just avoiding evil, but working every day to do as much as youpossibly could to take away other peoples' pain, some of them strangers you will nevereven meet.

Related: No God? No Problem

The people who live this way are the subject of the fascinating new bookfrom New Yorker writer LarissaMacFarquhar, Strangers Drowning. She refers to them as "do-gooders," and the forms of charity they practice are so extremethat they seem alien to us merely good people. A Japanese Buddhist monk spends his days counseling isolated people who are thinking of committing suicide.A couple adopts more than 20 children, many of them fromimpoverished backgrounds or suffering from terminal medicalconditions, because they believe that's what God wants. Then there are the people who donate the vast bulk of their income tocharities judged to be the most effective at saving lives, the nurse who movedto Nicaragua in the midst of a civil war to provide women with medical care,the man who donated a kidney to a stranger, and an animal rights activist who figuredthe best way to alleviate the most suffering in the world would be to focus hisefforts on mistreated chickens.

A collection of stories about extraordinarily good peoplecould have been saccharine or worshipful, but Drowning Strangers is neither. MacFarquhar focuses on her subjects'struggles and doubts as well as the discomfort they can arouse in people, resulting in portraits that are both harrowing and humbling. It's alyrically written, far-reaching book that touches on philosophy, fiction, thearguments against do-gooderism, and the extreme anguish that arises when youmake other people's pain your own.

Recently, I called MacFarquhar up to talk to her about allthat.

VICE: What inspiredyou to write about these people?
Larissa MacFarquhar: I feel that in nonfictionand even more so in fictionthereis this sense that good people are boring, that goodness is simple, that thereis nothing interesting about striving morally. People have this notion thatgoodness is butterflies and bunnies. Good people are just as complex and strangeand driven and relentless as bad people. I wanted to write a book that exploredpeople who I wholeheartedly admired and who engaged with that complexity. And also,I sort of viewed it in some sense as an advertisement to novelists to say,"These people are interesting. You should write about them!" I wish there weremore fictional characters through which novelists explored this kind of life.

So you never foundthe people you wrote about alien or strange?
I understand why people feel that way. I'm sure there are some people out there who arealtruistic in a way we would find alien. But I wanted to find people who werehumans just like the rest of us, except they'd pushed themselves harder anddrove themselves to live as moral a life as they could in a way that most of usdon't do. I wanted to find people who were a challenge to the rest of us; I wantedto investigate a number of clichs about such people. One of them is thatpeople who care a great deal about strangers far away will care less abouttheir family and people close to them. Iwanted to investigate that and found that lo and behold, these people arehuman just as we are and they care just as deeply about their family as anyoneelse. The difference is they don't think that their families are the onlypeople that matter and that other people care about their families just asmuch.

Watch: LARPing Saved My Life

Why do some peoplerespond negatively to do-gooders or the idea of do-gooderism? Is it that we resent the idea that we should be doing the samethings they are?
Certainly I think that's part of it. No one wants to beshown up and made to feel selfish, even implicitly. All the people I've writtenabout are far too smart to be going around wagging their index fingers atpeople and telling them they ought to be less selfish. The problem is that justby seeing their lives or hearing about their lives, you feel implicitlyrebuked.

That's the first layer of our reaction to do-gooders. Ithink there's a much deeper difficulty people have, though, which is that they aren'tsure that it's actually the right thing to care about strangers so much.Most of us care deeply about our families and want to give everything wepossibly can to themwe believe that's the right thing to do. Giving to thepoint where you exact sacrifices not only from yourself but from people youlove makes us uncomfortable. And there's nothing petty aboutthat discomfortit's one of the deepest instincts of human life.

"Children around the age of ten or 12 are often quite overwhelmed when they discover facts about suffering and poverty in the world. They want to help and they want to do somethingand then they forget."

Do you think thatdo-gooders choose to be that way, or is it hard-wired into them in some way?
That's a hard question to answer. On the one hand, yes, I dothink that a sense of duty and an awareness of suffering are things they've allalways felt since they were children. But I think a lot of children feel thatway. Not very tiny children, but children around the age of ten or twelve are often quiteoverwhelmed when they discover facts about suffering and poverty in the world. They want to help and they want to do somethingand then they forget. Theyget carried away by the rest of life, and that urge just sort of fades away.But with these people, it doesn't. They don't let it.

It's really impossible to say to what extent this is achoice. For most of the people I'm writing about, they don't think ofthemselves as doing something extraordinary, they think of themselves as justdoing their duty, in the way that you would think about not stealing. I thinkit's probably both chosen and innate.

There's this theory I came across while reading aboutaltruistic individuals: the theory of the "parentified child." The idea is thata child who has at least one profoundly dysfunctional parentthey're analcoholic, or have a serious mental illness, for instancethat child may growup thinking that what's wrong with their family is their fault. But even ifthey don't, they want to fix it. They feel obliged to rescue their family. Theytry to take care of their siblings and parents, maybe take care of the house,try to be as good a student as they can be. And the idea is that this sort ofchild will grow up to feel an outsized sense of responsibility, that they willfeel obliged to fix the world. When I first encountered this theory I thought, Bah! Here is another theory designed to makeus think there's something wrong with very morally-driven people. Butactually, when I think about the people in my book, it's striking how many ofthem have grown up with a parent like that.

There's this theorythatthroughout history humans' "moral circle" keeps expanding, and we've continuously become moreempathetic to people who aren't part of our clan or tribe or nation orethnicity. Do you think this trend willmake the sacrifices of do-gooderism seem less strange with time?
I hope so. It's certainly true that now we care aboutanimals in a way that would have been inconceivable to most people 300 yearsago. We now consider slavery unimaginable and repellent and yet until recently it wasa deep part of American life. So there's no question that we can change ourmoral minds quite profoundly and quite fast. There's a tendency to think thatsome things are just part of human nature and are never going to change but ifyou look at the history of our public morality that's just not the case.

"For do-gooders it's always wartime. They don't think that we're living in normal times."

That's an upliftingway of looking at the world.
I think part of it is expectations. That's why I talk a bitabout wartime in the book. Some of the reasons people don't give more are theusual answerswe're selfish, we're lazy, etc. And that's of course true. But we also don't give more because we think it'snatural for humans not to give more. And when that changes, as it does in timesof crisislike a war or a tsunami or a hurricanepeople's ideas about what theyought to and can do change immediately. If your country's at war and youthink it's a good war, it will suddenly seem perfectly natural and right toleave your family behind and risk your life for the sake of a cause. Or givingyour life for the sake of a strangerthat's something that seems zealous andextreme in normal times, but in wartime it seems perfectly normal. And I thinkthe difference is that for do-gooders it's always wartime. They don't thinkthat we're living in normal times now. They know we're always in a situationwhere there are many many many many people in need.

It's a kind of moral genius that enables them to imagine suffering vividly in away that most of us don't unless it's right in front of us. Most of us, forinstance, knew that there was a refugee crisis in Europe but it didn't becomevivid to most people until we saw that photo that everyone in the world saw ofthat toddler with his face in the water. Then, all of a sudden, we felt that suffering that we knewintellectually had existed before. But to the kind of person I'm writing about,that suffering is vivid without the help of photographs, without the help ofmoving articles, without the help of movies. They know it's there, and they imagineit so vividly that they are as moved to help as the rest of us would be ifsomeone was drowning right in front of us.

Strangers Drowning is out now from Penguin.

Follow Harry on Twitter.

Bernie Sanders in Phoenix, Arizona, trying to incite a revolution. Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons

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WhenBernie Sanders got behind the podium for the first Democratic presidential debate last week, it was clear that he had a different mission than anyone elseon stage. Other candidates used their opening statements to talk about theirchildren, their wives, the things they'd accomplished while in office. Theythanked Anderson Cooper and Facebook, and noted how grateful they were to be inLas Vegas that night.

Sandershad no time for these pleasantries. Grimacing and gesticulating like an angryBrooklyn deli man, the Vermont Senator launched into a diatribe about decliningwages for American workers, youth unemployment, climate change, and CitizensUnited. "What this campaign is about," he concluded abruptly, "is whether wecan mobilize our people to take back our government from a handful ofbillionaires and create the vibrant democracy we know we can and should have."

Inalmost any other presidential election year, Sanders and his hair-on-fire populismwould be dismissed as a novelty, notable for his hair-on-fire populismand remarkable resemblance to Larry David, but otherwise a non-factor. But thisis the Democratic Party in 2015 and to almost everyone one's surprise, a74-year-old self-described Socialist is the second most important candidate vyingfor the party's nomination. The question now is whether Sanders' success hascome because of, or in spite of, his unabashed embrace of that coded label.

Theissue came up early in the debate last Tuesday, with Anderson Cooper citing apoll that found most Americans wouldn't vote for a socialist.Would Sanders, he asked, call himself a capitalist?

"Do Iconsider myself part of the casino capitalist process by which so few have somuch and so many have so little by which Wall Street's greed and recklessnesswrecked this economy?" Sanders snapped back. "No, I don't. I believe in a societywhere all people do well."

Then,as elderly newspaper columnists blinked disbelievingly, the audience erupted incheers. Clinton, however, smelled blood in the water, and deftly distancedherself from her unexpected rival. "It's our job to rein in the excesses ofcapitalism so that it doesn't run amok and doesn't cause the kind of inequitieswe're seeing in our economic system," she said. "But we would be making a gravemistake to turn our backs on what built the greatest middle class inthe history of the world."

Thetruth is, on the surface at least, Sanders and Clinton don't sound sodifferent. Both talk often about the problems of inequality, the student debtcrisis, the need to rein in big banks. But when Sander digs slightly deeperashe does virtually every time he's on the stumphe reveals a hotter ideologicalfire. He doesn't just want to defend Social Security, he wants to expand it; heloves single-payer healthcare, thinks college should be free for everyone, andgenerally would like to supersize the federal government. Bernie Sanders'America would look more like Denmark, Sweden, and Norwaythree Scandinaviansocial democracies the candidate often praises for their hand-on approach tocaring for the basic needs of their citizens.

Infact, for someone running for president of the United States, Sanders isshockingly eager to talk about the ways the country sucks. He's noted the highrates of child poverty in the US, the lack of universal healthcare, the absenceof paid family leave that is standard in other wealthy, industrial nations. Atone point last week, he actually called the US an "internationalembarrassment."

Theidea that someone who says stuff like that could become commander in chiefseems ludicrous to most pundits. TheWashington Post's Chris Cillizza has been particularlyadamant on this point, writing that a Sanders presidency "just ain't happening," and noting that whileDemocrats like the Vermont Senator, they don't actually think he can win.

Sandersis apparently determined to prove that wrong. Acknowledging that Americans tendto "get very, very nervous" by the whole socialism thing, Sanders announcedthis week that he will soon give a speech defining just what he means when he calls himself a"Democratic socialist."

"Tome, democratic socialism means democracy. It means creating a government thatrepresents all of us, not just the wealthiest people in the country," he said at a campaign event in Iowa. "When you go to your public library, when youcall your Fire Department or the Police Department, what do you think you'recalling?" he continued. "These are socialist institutions."

It's hard to imagine that millions of Americanvoters could ever be convinced that Scandinavian-style socialism is awesome.But in Sanders' home state, at least, the Senator's record suggests the idea may not be as crazy as it sounds.

Ken Corey, an unlikely socialist sympathizer in Sanders' home state. Photo by Livia Gershon

Bynow, you probably know that Sanders began his politicalcareer as the mayor of the patchouli-scented college town of Burlington,Vermont. But for the past 15 years, since winning his first congressional racein 1990, he's been getting most of his votes from parts of the state that aremore Dunkin' Donuts and NASCAR than organic farming communes and drum circles.

Rutland County, for example, sendsmostly Republicans to the Vermont state legislature; in 2014, the GOP's gubernatorial candidate took Rutland by a sizable margin, beating the Democratic incumbent there with 54 percent ofthe vote (he lost statewide). Yet, when Sanders was last up for re-election, in2012, 65 percent of Rutland County voters chose their Socialist Senator.

Obviously, Sanders gets a lot of support from the liberals whocolonized Vermont in the 1960s and 70s, a Big City exodus that theBrooklyn-born radical himself was an integral part of. But since winningnational office, Sanders has also gotten lots of love from the originalVermonters, the old school, working-class New Englanders more likely to belongto the National Rifle Association than the Sierra Club.

"He was able to connect with poor people in places like theNortheast Kingdom, the corner of the state with the most poverty," said Universityof Vermont political science professor Garrison Nelson, the local expert onBernie's career. Sanders, he explained, has managed to make the federalgovernment's more socialist programsparticularly the VA healthcaresystem, which happens to be the closest thing the US has to socializedmedicinework for working-class voters who might otherwise shudder at theS-word.

According to John McClaughry, a conservative former Republicanstate legislator who runs Vermont's only free-market think tank, said Sandersplays to some of the same populist impulses as many politicians on the farright. He recalled one one election, hesaid, he and Sanders were the two top vote-getters in one tiny farm towndespite being polar opposites ideologically.

"Bernie's always fed on envy and class warfare," said McClaughry."Politically, he's done pretty well without being one of the people that isalways triangulating or compromising or somehow playing both sides of theissue. Bernie doesn't do that. He plays only the socialist side of the issue,for which I give him some grudging respect."

Vermont Republican Mary Ellen Grace has been feeling #TheBern for years. Photo by Livia Gershon

I ran into one unlikely socialist sympathizer recently at aRutland City dollar store. Mary Ellen Grace, a retired banker who was shoppingfor party supplies, said she voted for Vermont's Republican gubernatorialcandidate in the last election and generally leans to the right politically.But she's been supporting Sanders for years. "I like him," Grace told me. "Ifeel as though he understands we middle-class people." She worries about thejob prospects for her children, and thinks families like hers are disappearing.Bernie, she said, gets that.

Nearby, outside of a building supplies store, I talked to KenCorey, a shuttle driver for a local Ford dealership and the kind ofworking-class white guy generally assumed to be put off by liberals. Corey toldme he considers himself an Independent, but votes for "whoever I think will dogood for the country." He also told me he's a big Bernie fan. "Bringing the minimum wage up, I think, is good," he said.

While it's easyand not entirely inaccurateto dismiss Vermontas a liberal state where even some Republicans fall left-of-center by nationalstandards, Sanders' success there hints at the broad appeal of his message, andunderscores the oft-forgotten fact that American political preferencesfrequently don't fall along a simple left-right continuum. A Pew report published last year confirms this political indecisiveness, showingthat only 36 percent of the general public hold views that place them cleanlyin a particular political camp. Meanwhile, the term "socialism" is becoming aless effective insult as the Cold War era fades from popular memory: One recent survey revealed that Americans under 30 were nearly as likely tohave a positive view of socialism as they were of capitalism.

Mike Spafford at his eponymous Country Store. Photo by Livia Gershon

If I needed more evidence of the ideological inconsistency of theAmerican electorate, I found it in Mike Spafford, the owner of Mike's CountryStore in North Clarendon, Vermont. When I asked him about the state's junior senator,Spafford immediately told me how much he hates socialism. "I think the only wayfor a society to work is for everybody to pull their own weight," he saidpointedly. He went on, telling that he doesn't like Sanders' idea of freecollege, and thinks welfare abuse is a big problem in the US.

But then he added that recently, he's become convinced thatcorporate welfare is even worse. "If the corporations and the wealthy were taxedappropriately I would look at it as more jobs, more roads, better infrastructure,not more social programs," Spafford said. At least Sanders is honest, headdedhonest about Wall Street and the corporate interests that run thecountry.

Spafford admits that sounds a little like aconspiracy theory, but says it also kind of rings true. He can barely bringhimself to think about voting for a socialist for president, he said, butchoosing for any of the other potential candidates seems just as bad in adifferent way. So for now, at least, he's glad Sanders is running.

"I like hearinghim agitating and stirring the pot," he said, "Because Hillary Clinton hasHillary Clinton's best interests in mind and the best interests of thecorporations supporting her."

"Bernie doesn't," he added. "What I like is that all the liars are going to beexposed and Bernie's going to keep exposing them right to the end."

Follow Livia Gershon on Twitter.

Geralt and Shani, as seen in 'Hearts of Stone'

I'm on record as wholeheartedly adoring CD Projekt RED's action role-player of this year, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I don't think that another game of 2015 will touch it, personally. I've spent well over 100 hours in its company, more likely getting on for 150, and I've not sunk that deeply into any video game since... Actually, I'm not sure. I think I lost my 20/20 vision in front of Sensible World of Soccer, but aside from that? I've played a lot of The Witcher 3, is what I'm saying.

And here is your one and only spoiler warning because I'm about to get into some details.

I was pleased, satisfied, at the way my story in The Witcher 3 ended, in a montage of happy scenarios. While it's not a game that enables the player to create a character, be that in their own image or something entirely wild (or, in Destiny, Just Some Blue Dude), I became attached enough to Geralt of Rivia, to my version of him, based on the decisions I made through the game's main quest and its multitude of side-missions and monster hunts, to feel wholly invested in the fantasy fiction. My shoes were his shoes; his successes mine to bask in the glory of.

I began my completion playthroughactually my second, as I never finished the first (50 hours clocked, no conclusion)as a heartless bastard, screwing peasants over for as much coin as I could to rid their villages of beastly infestations; but it didn't take long for a more honorable streak to run through my game. Keep the coin, I'd say; you need it more than I do. And when it came to courting, I was exclusively loyal to Geralt's not quite one true love, Yennefer. Come the credits, every main character seemed content. Apart from Radovidking of Redania and just a total fucking headache whenever he was on the screen. He died, horribly, deservedly. (Not by my hand, you understand. I was just passing, honestly officer.)

So I couldn't wait to play more, which I'm doing right now, making my way through the compact but compelling expansion pack, Hearts of Stone. This inexpensive slice of DLC offers some ten hours of content, including a new story where Geralt meets the enigmatic and ever-so-slightly immortal Olgierd von Everec, who gets you running around the northern parts of Velen to deliver him some wishes, and appears to be modeled on David Beckham after a car accident.

See?

I'm getting close to the end of Hearts of Stone, I can feel it in my bones, but there's been one chapter, if you will, of this tale that's really not sitting right with me after the way I played the main game. Olgierd has a brother, Vlodomir, who he wants Geralt to take out for a roaring good time of drinking and whoring and throwing up his guts-ing. Only, actually, he had a brotherVlodomir's in the family crypt, and has been for long enough for his corpse to be in the sort of state that no amount of necromancy should reanimate. His ghost is a right lippy prick, too.

Long-ish story dramatically shortened: Vlodomir possesses Geralt's body as he attends a wedding at the invitation of an old friend, Shani, who appeared in the first Witcher game. Vlodomir uses our cat-eyed protagonist to make merry with the other guests, sticking a pair of ass ears on his noggin, indulging in some filthy pig wrangling, and making inappropriate comments about the bride and groom to their faces. There's a pissed fire-eater to save from a yapping dog, shoes to fish out of a stinking pond, and a slightly sweet part where Vlodomir-as-Geralt and Shani share a dance. It's quite unlike any wedding I've attended IRL, but a welcome change of tone, I suppose, from the bleak depression of Wild Hunt's many deaths.

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Watch VICE's film, 'LARPing Saved My Life'

But at the end of the festivities, the game goes and smashes my Geralt to pieces. Vlod gets his marching orders: back to death's embrace, you wicked-tongued perv, you. Shani's upset about something. My Geralt picks some flowers from her favorite tree. Cheers her right up. She doesn't want to leave right away; she wants to spend some time catching up, since the previous few hours have been spent in the company of Geralt-but-not-Geralt. Seems reasonable. Sure, let's hang out for a bit. The Witcher 3 never hurries its main narrative; players can drop in and out of it as they wish, so I'm certain that the demands of Olgierd can wait a while. Hang on. What's this? Shani, please, I'm happy to linger a while, but, no, wait, get your hands off... Oh fucking hell, okay, fine. I'll go and break my commitment to my favorite sorceress, who, by the by, will have my silver locks for frolicking in this pitiful excuse of a boat. Splinters in my ass, guilt on my shoulders, cheers.

My Geralt was no womanizer. The option's there, right through Wild Hunt. But I stayed true. Yet Hearts of Stone makes it hard for Geralt not to sleep with Shaniyou can choose to leave the morning after the night before and crack on with planning a heist (which is great, by the way), but I figured that these two deserved some time together. I guess I selected the wrong dialogue options and inadvertently triggered a romance I never wanted, when all my Geralt was after was good conversation and some tolerable wine.

New on Motherboard: Nine People Have Been Arrested for Fixing 'StarCraft' Matches

It's incredibly weird to feel you've wronged someone who isn't real, while playing a character who, equally, is entirely made-up. But such is the strength of CD Projekt's storytelling in The Witcher 3 that I can honestly say that my own stomach sank after cheating on a partner who, for so many hours, my Geralt was only ever faithful to. It's obvious that the writers on Hearts of Stone wanted Geralt to reconnect with Shanithey'd shared intimate moments in the distant pastand, of course, not everyone will have played Wild Hunt in the same way as me. (I mean, Triss was in Playboy, so her appeal is clear to see.) I suppose I could load an earlier save and steer clear of the sexy shenanigans, but since I've never gone back once across all those hours, I'll be damned if I'm doing so now.

So it's on I trudge. My Geralt, not quite the Geralt he was before. Off to see a man who can't be killed about an auction house that isn't quite what it seems. Away to kill a monster or ten, though no amount of coin can repay the debt now owed to his beloved. Destined to never properly learn Gwent. My Geralt, burdened with entirely unexpected shame, still nothing more than a helpless pawn in the bigger game of swords and sorcery surrounding him, following his dick towards a whole new kind of danger.

Follow Mike on Twitter.

Artwork from 'Super Mario Bros.'

Let me tell you a little about the culture of 1985. It was, mostly, shit. On TV, both EastEnders and Neighbours started. In music, dick-dipping, cock-rock douchebags Guns N' Roses formed, likewiseand this might surprise youthe miserable posh-experimentalist bastards who make up Radiohead. At the box office, two of the top three movies of the year starred Sylvester shitting Stallone, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rocky IV. The highest-grossing film was Back to the Future, which has some relevance to today's Twitter trends. Back to the Future was pretty good. Its sequel, too, though the third film, nah.

Video gaming, however, was completely awesome in 1985. Important stuff happened, loads of it. Here's just some of it.

A 1985 television advert for the NES

The Console Wars Kicked Off

Nintendo's Famicomits "family computer"had been a hit in its homeland of Japan since 1983, and 1985 saw the company up its international focus considerably by remodeling their 8bit system for a stateside release. This boxy, gray, entirely iconic machine, the Nintendo Entertainment Systemsold not as a toy but a family entertainment productreached American customers for the first time in October '85. Five years later, 30 percent of US homes would have one, and the console would be celebrated as a vital player in reversing the games industry's economic crash of the early 1980s.

SEGA, in contrast, was more obviously focused on the arcade market in the mid-1980s. But its heated home gaming rivalry with Nintendo, the root of a thousand arguments every hour of every day around the developed world at the time, would begin in 1985 with the release of its Mark III system in Japan. Created to be a direct competitor to the Famicom, for its international campaign the Mark III was remolded into the Master System. It reached Europe in 1987, ultimately outselling Nintendo's alternative in the EU, but SEGA wouldn't gain a satisfactory foothold in the States until the introduction of the Genesis in the summer of 1989.

Until Sony's scene-changing PlayStation came along, the console of choice beneath any TV in the 1980s and early 1990s would be either a Nintendo or SEGA, and rarely would owners of one machine see the positives of the other. Magazines and marketers regularly attacked the opposition, and the console wars were upon us: forged in the competitive flames of 1985 and unlikely to ever be extinguished, as new players have risen to enter the game while others, notably SEGA, have fallen away.

Ryo plays 'Hang-On' and 'Space Harrier' in the 1999 Dreamcast game 'Shenmue'

SEGA's Arcade Games Were Fantastic, Though

Hang-On and Space Harrier landed in arcades in 1985, and proceeded to quaff quarters like fat kids do doughnuts. There were a handful of other notable arcade releases the same year, like the blueprint-forming shooter Gradius from Konami and Atari's Paperboy and Gauntlet, both of which would enjoy a number of solid home-system ports. But few featured a full-enough-size motorbike that you sat on and leaned left to right while you played. Hang-On did, so Hang-On won. Fourteen years later, designer Yu Suzuki put a fully operational Hang-On cab in his Dreamcast adventure Shenmue. Not quite the same, but less likely to leave you with aching balls.

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Related: Watch VICE's new film, 'LARPing Saved My Life'

'Moonstone' was gratuitously gory, but I can't say my parents seemed to mind

The Amiga Came Out

If you had a computer in your house in the late 1980s into the early 1990s, there's a very strong chance that it was a Commodore Amiga. At the very least, loads of my mates had one. Numerous models were released between the series' launch in 1985 with the Amiga 1000 and its official discontinuation in 1996, with the most popular undeniably the 500, selling as many as 6 million units worldwide. We had a 500 at home, and later a 1200. I'm sure that our first was picked up because of its homework potential, but the Amiga for many was first and foremost a gaming machine, host to countless absolute classics of the 16bit era, some of which never made the move to consoles (or if they did, they weren't as good). Speedball 2, The Chaos Engine, Lemmings, Sensible Soccer, Moonstone, The Secret of Monkey Island, Cannon Fodder, Turrican II, Alien Breed, Populous, Syndicate. Sod it, I'll throw in Deluxe Paint II, given the hours I spent staring at it. The Amiga is the bedrock of my gaming identity, more so than any console. Cheers, dad.

'Super Mario Bros.,' Level 1-1

'Super Mario Bros.' Changed the Gaming World as We Know It

The greatest video game in the whole damn world, possibly. Depends who you ask. Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. of 1985 was certainly the biggest-selling game for many years, not beaten in terms of units shifted until 2008 (it's currently the fifth highest-selling game of all time). Research conducted at VICE's London office has shown that today's gamers can struggle to even finish Level 1-1. Losers. Nevertheless, better to die repeatedly at the (no) hands of a goomba grunt than be made to sit through the movie adaptation.

New on Motherboard: It Makes Sense for Nintendo to Merge Mobile and Home Consoles

A single-credit clearance of 'Yie Ar Kung-Fu'

Konami Effectively Defined the Fighting Game Genre

You're forgiven for having never heard of Yie Ar Kung-Fu, but without this one-on-one fighting game from Konami, it might be that we never got Street Fighter II, or Mortal Kombat, or Eternal Champions. (Shut up, Eternal Champions was terrific.) Hitting arcades in January 1985 and moving to European home computers come the autumn, ultimately becoming the second-biggest seller of 1986 across all formats in the UK, Yie Ar challenged the player to overcome a series of foes, each of whom has a style entirely their own, with unique moves and the occasional projectile. Sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it; yet before Yie Ar, gaming didn't really have a title in what we now consider the Street Fighter mold (Capcom's fighter didn't debut until 1987). There was Karate Champ, apparently, but I don't remember seeing it around at the time. Yie Ar, though, felt like it was everywhere, infectious and hugely inspirational. There's probably a Spectrum copy in your parents' loft.

Fifteen different screens, you say?

The ColecoVision Died

It was probably for the best. I mean, that controller, honestly. What were these people smoking?

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Photo by Will Coutts

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

London could be getting a night mayor. This means two things. One: There's a new contender for the best job title in Britain (although, inexcusably, the role will officially be known as the "night time economy champion"). Two: This is a potential turning point in the fight for London's nightlife, which until now was going about as well as Ten Walls's career.

Plans for a night mayor were announced this week as part of a rescue plan produced by the actual mayor's Music Venues Taskforce, which recommended a range of measures including a way to stop the idiots who move in next door to nightclubs and subsequently shut them down with noise complaints.

Mayor Boris Johnson was quick to back the plan, confirming that he would "investigate the potential" of a night time economy champion and set up a Music Development Board to take forward its other recommendations. Overall, he acknowledged that "protecting live music venues is crucial to London's continued position as the music capital of the world." BoJo would no doubt have been swayed by the persuasive contributions of musicians, including Frank Turner, who warned: "Without the spaces for new talent to discover itself and its audience, music in London will die a slow death."

Read on Noisey: How London Has Forced Out Musicians

Suffice to say, this is all good news for anyone who likes listening to music and occasionally stays out past 10 PM. But while the report contains a multitude of common sense measures, it also paints a vivid picture of the damage that has been done to London's nightlife in recent yearsand the scale of the challenges to be overcome. The report focused largely on small venues putting on live acts, but even when not accounting for lost venues such as Herbal, Cable, and Plastic People, the statistics make for grim reading. Of 136 grassroots music venues operating in London in 2007, almost half are now closed. Accounting for new openings, the total number of trading venues has still fallen to 88 in eight years.

Mark Davyd is chair of the task-force that produced the report. I ask him about the implications of these closures and he tells me they're already happening. "We've lost 35 percent of these grassroots music venues," he says. "We're seeing our festival headliners starting to age. The reason this report has got backing is because we're starting to see these outcomes."

There's not one individual factor that can be blamed for all these closures. The rescue plan identifies numerous problems facing venue operators, ranging from rising rents and the prospect of owners selling venues off to be turned into housing, through to increasingly onerous licensing restrictions. However, one key issue is the lack of a voice which can speak on behalf of the industry.

Photo: Fabric

Mirik Milan is the night mayor of Amsterdam and probably the most famous night mayor in the world. The post was first established in 2003; Mirik has held it since 2012. When I call to ask what kind of difference a night mayor can make, he explains how important it is to have someone who can fight the nightlife industry's corner. He recalls, in the late 90s, in Amsterdam, "If you were an organizer of dance events and house music parties, you were looked at more or less like a criminal. Nowadays it's a serious industry and the city benefits from its social, cultural, and economic value."

Making an economic case for nightlife seems to be a prerequisite for securing its future. Not that it's a hard case to make. In the UK, it's estimated that the night-time economy generates around 66 billion a year, a figure that can be grasped by even the most obtuse politician. But the arguments for music and nightlife go way beyond such figures. "I don't only want to focus on the economic side. It's important, but that's not the only reason," says Milan. "It's important to have a good nightlife scene; it attracts a lot of young creative people and they are followed by the creative industries."

However, arguments about nightlife's economic and cultural contribution are only part of the story. There's a need to protect not just the industry's reputation but the physical spaces it needs to exist. It's a battle that's been playing out in cities such as Berlin, where music venues face many of the same challenges from development and gentrification as those in London.

Read on Thump: London Could Be Getting a Night Mayor

Lutz Leichsenring is spokesman for Clubcommission, which was formed in 2000 and now represents around 150 clubs and party organizers in Berlin. "We started because we had problems with raids on clubs almost every week," says Leichsenring. "It was kind of a reaction to politicians and the administration, because they didn't really communicate with us. They didn't know who to talk to, they just knew how to react with force."

Nowadays, Clubcommission works with the city authorities to foresee potential problems. "We want to act rather than react," says Leichsenring. This summer, the organization launched an online directory of night time venues in the city, which is being used to inform decisions on construction projects where noise complaints could threaten the future of a venue. The city now also takes into consideration cultural and social factors when selling off its own buildings. "You can't buy creativity, but you can provide spaces for creative people which are reasonably priced," says Leichsenring. "Not just on the outside of the city, near the pulse of the city on the inside."

Amsterdam and Berlin show what can be achieved when the city authorities work with the nightlife industry, rather than seeing it as a problem to be stamped out. This week's rescue plan, and its subsequent backing by Johnson, suggests London could be coming round to this way of thinking. Alan Miller, chair of the Night Time Industries Association, says: "It's a very significant moment. It underlines the importance, economically and culturally, of the night time. It makes it clear that the GLA and the mayor's office think it's important."

That said, there are others who may still need to be won over. Councils and the police could be stumbling blocks on the path to a more progressive approach to London's nightlife. Davyd sums up the progress made this week: "I think there is still a significant way to go to win the hearts and minds, but it is incredibly important we also acknowledge this is a win for music venues and the night time economy."

There is also still a question mark over the extent of the mayor's good intentions. "When you make it clear that you can't have an Adele without a 12 Bar Club, it makes it clear to anybody," says Davyd. Will politicians understand the same arguments when applied to Jamie XX or Eats Everything?

"It's a long process," admits Milan.

Amsterdam's night mayor knows what it takes to successfully fight for a city's nightlife scene. This week, news emerged that Amsterdam is considering 24-hour licenses for three new nightclubs in the city, including a 500-capacity venue from the company behind Trouw. Milan sees in London many of the challenges that Amsterdam was facing ten years ago, and he knows the situation can be turned around. "All the good clubs are closing. There's breathalyzers, ID-ing. It's going really in the wrong direction and people will just get fed up with it. You need to have a change," he says. "I think this is the moment."

Follow Mark on Twitter.

On the campaign trail, former prime minister Stephen Harper tried out a jazzy new gesture. Did this cost him the election? Photo via Facebook/Stephen Harper

Read: The Definitive Explanation for Why You Voted in Justin Trudeau

As news broke on Monday night that the Liberals had not only defeated the Conservatives, but secured a majority government, Twitter exploded into a flurry of tweets and memes directed at soon-to-be-gone Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Too bad it seemed like most people tweeted the wrong Harper.

Renowned hacker and totally-not-Canadian Twitter user Harper Reed was bombarded by tweets from people looking to drop their two cents about the real Stephen Harper, whose account is actually @pm_harper, not @Harper.

Reed, who lives in Chicago, handled the situation like any internet-savvy person shouldby straight-up trolling the confused masses.

"So happy 2 get our Canada back. Good riddance @harper. Welcome @JustinTrudeau," one Twitter user wrote, to which @Harper replied, "I refuse to Leave. You can't make me."

Harper Reed, as seen on Twitter

Another fantastic interaction, which occurred between the mistaken @Harper and perpetrating user @lawnsea, began when the latter tweeted "rough night for @harper. aw bud sorry," which prompted the American hacker to respond tongue-firmly-in-cheek.

"At least my name is not grass ocean," Reed wrote.

The original tweeter, who appears to be well-versed in the primary Canadian language of English, responded saying that he didn't think he'd have a "prairie chance" (seriously) of getting a response out of the infamous not-really-prime-minister @Harper.

An internet personality and formerly the chief technology officer of Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, Reed grew to notoriety in the mid-2000s for his time as a hacker and technological engineer who was working as CTO for the hipster clothing company Threadless.

Reed told the BBC the onslaught of tweets had been going on for most of the election, but that they only got "out of hand" after Monday's results.

"From the beginning it was funny, as normally someone's really mad at you," he told the BBC. "When you reply they suddenly turn around. The other funny part is that when I respond, everyone replies in a very Canadian way, apologies, apologies, apologies. I try to be positive, I don't correct them. I'll just act like we're in some fantasy world, where I'm prime minister."

Reed said that despite Canadians blowing up his Twitter with angry hate mail, he's still pretty clueless about what the fuck is going on up here.

"I have no idea what's happening in Canada... People are very sensitive about politics, and people have enough negativity in their lives. I want to have fun, and they hopefully have fun too."

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.

When a charismatic former alcoholic named Shaft had his life changed by Burning Man, he realized that he actually identifies as a unicorn. No longer able to face the monotony of work and life in the real world, he decided to form a polyamorous and hedonistic movement with other like-minded unicorns.

Donning glittery horns and galloping through London's streets, Shaft's unicorns set about trying to create a free-love utopia.

But as the unicorn revolution begins to clash with the realities of life and love, some of the "glampede" became disillusioned, and Shaft's reasons for starting this whole thing came into question.

Is this the hedonistic, free love revolution we were promised in the 60s? Or is it as fake as the unicorn horns they wear, a desperate and clever ploy by Shaft to escape his own inner loneliness by starting a cult?

The author, a mushroom, and Tom Fortes-Mayer

A golfer shakes his iron angrily in the air as we plough our buggy through the middle of his game. Dr. Brande*, an international expert in the field of hallucinogenic mushrooms, cackles beside me. This has become a race against metabolism: return the vehicle before the drugs kick in.

They have undeniably begun to kick in.

We have not, as you might have guessed, come to this north London golf course to admire its famously majestic thirteenth hole. Rather, we are testing an experimental cure for one of mankind's greatest curses: cigarettes.

I've tried everything: patches, gum, inhalers, faith healers; none of it seems to work. So when "Stoptober," that UK government-mandated holiday season for the lungs, rolls around, I greet it with a leathery wheeze of resentment. Surely there must be a better way?

According to Johns Hopkins University, there is: magic mushrooms. Psychedelic mushrooms have, for fairly obvious reasons, attracted human interest for millennia. Seven-thousand-year-old Saharan cave paintings suggest ancient cults worshiped them; the Aztecs carried out healings with them; the Vikings made war with them; even Jesus, some claim, was actually just a magic mushroom in disguise.

Read on MUNCHIES: Magic Shrooms Deserve to Be Elevated into Quiches

Now, thanks to science, our fungal friends can add the imminent destruction of the tobacco industry to their many great achievements. Psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, has an 80 percent success rate in the treatment of cigarette addiction, according to research carried out by the university. To put that in context, nicotine replacement therapiessuch as patches or gumhit around 20 percent. And yet, somehow, one year after that research was published, these lifesaving little shrooms are strictly forbidden.

Lucky, then, that Stoptober and magic mushroom picking season perfectly intersect. According to Dr. Brande, within London, golf courses are the best bet.

"We're looking for psilocybe semilanceata, a small, beige-brown mushroom more commonly known as the liberty cap," he says, as we nose our way around the course. "You'll see the cap sticking out of the grass. That's its really defining feature: a steep domed cap with a nipple on top. The nipples are essential."

"Look, there's one!" says Dr. Brande. "Just peeping up above the grass!"

Tom Fortes-Mayer and the author

It's a seemingly harmless little thing, but handling these mushrooms can have terrible consequences. "As soon as you pick it," says Dr. Brande, "you are guilty of possession of a class A drug." If I were to give this tiny mushroom to Brande, I could face a maximum of 14 years in prison for supply. So I don't; I eat it instead.

The original study involved years of preparation. Carrying out human trials with Schedule I drugssubstances not recognized by the establishment as having any therapeutic valueis an extremely bothersome process. The subjects had to be prepped for months before being given their first dose.

According to Dr. Matthew Johnson, one of the chief researchers on the project, much of that work involved simply preparing patients for the intensity of the psilocybin trip. "One can have these glorious, sometimes mystical, certainly intriguing effects," Dr. Johnson told VICE, "but also people can have what is sometimes described as the most frightening experience of someone's life. ," says Johnson, "welcome your dead grandmother up your leg and ask her what she's there to tell you. Whether it's a monster or a dead grandmother, always take the orientation that this is something to learn from. Whether it's inviting or horribly frightening, always approach and learn."

Participants in the study were carefully handled. They had comfortable settings, considerate guides and trained psychologists and medics on hand in case it all went wrong. Instead, we're driving the wrong way around a north London golf course, harvesting mushrooms as we go.

One advantage we do have is the presence of Tom Fortes-Mayer, a Harley Street hypnotherapist who has agreed to act as guide and guardian throughout this process.

"Usually when people come to give up smoking they feel like they're losing a naughty but slightly charming and faithful friend," says Tom. "Our job in the ritual we are going to perform is to change that perspective. Really, smoking is the kind of friend who, when you're not looking, goes upstairs and abuses your daughter."

Telling someone who is coming up on mushrooms that they have a pedophile living inside them is an awful thing to do. But it's exactly this sort of thought process that makes psilocybin so effective in treating addiction.

Related: Watch 'Hamilton and the Philosopher's Stone,' our film about the world's largest psilocybin-containing-truffle factory.

The drug, says Dr. Johnson, helps patients see their lives in perspective. It is, for many, a "mystical experience."

"In these cases, it's striking that there's typically an overwhelming sense of unity," says Dr. Johnson. "A sense of feeling like you step out of time and space; a sense of paradoxicality; experiences of the ineffable; a noetic quality; a sense that somehow the experience is more real and valid than reality."

Psilocybin may very well be the wonder drugplenty of new research suggests that it isbut it is truly terrible for driving. My feet are at the pedals but Dr. Brande's hands seem to have taken firm control of the wheel.

"I suggest we find somewhere quiet to perform the ritual," says Tom Fortes-Mayer.

What happens next is hard to describe. We lay down in a forest. The trees pulsate. With the hypnotherapist's guidance I travel deep, deep down into the ageless, genderless, timeless core of my consciousness and kick a few things around. I meet the part of my mind responsible for smoking and have a stern word. Other things occur, most of them too personal to relate.

When I emerge, a million years later, smoking is simply something other people do. The illusion is shattered; the urge has gone. I see someone with a cigarette and feel precisely nothing.

Over the week that follows I do all of the things that would normally have me reaching for cigarettes: leave the house, wait for a bus, do work, get drunk, go to parties, have arguments, drink coffee; in fact, thinking about it now, almost every major and minor event in my life was an occasion for a cigarette. Now that they're gone, I don't even miss them. It's now been a week and a half, and the cravings are still nonexistent.

The war on drugs has claimed millions of lives over the last half century. We know all about the victims of South American narco-states; the living death of the prison system; the friends who died because they didn't know what they were being sold. But what about those who could have been saved? Tobacco causes six million deaths per year. For a good portion of those, one tiny, highly illegal mushroom might contain the cure.

*At his request, Dr. Brande's identity has been protected. Dr. Matthew Johnson has also asked me to point out that Johns Hopkins University in no way condones the use of illegal drugs. And for that matter, neither does VICE. Don't eat mushrooms you find in a golf course, dummy.

Follow Charlie on Twitter.

All pictures by Juliana Bernstein/Get Tiny Photography

Welcome to Los Angeles Central City East, better known as Skid Row. In the immediate shadow of LA's booming, gentrifying downtown, thousands live at the bottom rung of American society in an area not larger than a few square blocks. At times, driving down 6th Street looks like a scene from The Walking Dead. Pestilence, drugs, prostitution, and violence are rampant. People sleep tent to tent, body to body. Suffice it to say, it's pretty fucking bleak.

Most media representations of Skid Row stop short at this carnage on the streets, but amid the doom and gloom, there's a very real community that lives and thrives on The Row. From Pastor Tony's Skid Row Karaoke to the Midnight Mission's nightly dinners to events put on by the local arts organization Los Angeles Poverty Department, people are establishing a community in defiance of the fact that society has abandoned them.

Over the weekend, the LAPD (the Los Angeles Poverty Department, not the other one) held the sixth edition of the Skid Row Arts Fair in Gladys Park. I met with some of the artists, onlookers, and organizers at the event to help share their stories.

The particular brand of empowerment the LAPD offers Skid Row residents isn't saddled with religious or political overtones, or even guilt. There's a joyous expression in every person who steps out on that stage. Whether they be a Michael Jackson impersonator or a legendary street guitarist, for a moment, everyone is watching, supporting, and loving them. It's moments like this that keeps the light flickering during dark times for many of the performers.

Art serves a different function on Skid Row. It's not about selling, it's not even necessarily about being good, it's about defiantly expressing your existence in a world that would rather pretend you didn't exist at all. To me, art like that is more valid than any fancy shit hung up on a wall in the nice part of town that's threatening to squeeze Skid Row out.

JO CLARKEMichael Jackson Impersonator

VICE: You're a pretty convincing Michael Jackson impersonator.
Jo Clarke: Thank you! I've been doing it for 30 years. I am a professional. I was with a Las Vegas show for 25 years, and I've been performing here for six years.

Do you live in the neighborhood?
Right now. Just for now.

Tell me about the community down here.
There's a lot of beautiful people out here. There's also a lot of not-so-beautiful people. Case in point: Someone stole my outfit! I just stepped away to go to the bathroom and someone stole my stuff. I guess they wanted to be Michael Jackson too!

Did you have backup outfits?

I did! But if I had to go up there naked with one shoe, I would. I proved to them that the show must go on. No matter what happens to you in life, if you're serious about what you do and love what you do, nothing can stop it. This is my destiny to do it again, to be successful again. Stuff like that is not gonna stop me!

MykoDrummer

VICE: What are these?
Myko: They're bracelets. They're from Kenya. They're the Rastafarian colors, the colors of Ethiopia. The Rastas were down with Haile Selassie, the Emperor. They refer to him as a living god. The black is for the people. The red is for the blood that was shed. The green is for the fertility of the land, and the yellow is for the gold that was stolen. I don't have a color for the bible they gave us for the land, though. said, 'we can make a penalty!' And I said 'How about a reward for coming back early?' He didn't even think about that! He wants to hurt people when they fuck up. People should be punished! Fuuucked up! You wanna punish people, then they're out!

You're like a shaman when you're on stage. It's like you're channeling some crazy shit.
I am. It's true. I spent all those decades and decades, including right now, continuing, to become infinite, a channel for an even higher power for which, I am their instrument! It's true. Oh, it's wild.

Do you perform around here a lot?
Oh, oh yeah. I've been doing it for 55 years. But I don't perform.

If you don't call it "performing," what do you call it?
Playing! Oh, this is important: People are really fucked up. People wanna fight you down over the word w-o-r-k, work work work. I say no, it's play play play. I refused to work at about 24, so god gave me a lot of play! It's true. Fuck that shit. I don't want no job. Fuck the state of the economy... The state of my economy is that I'm an artist doin' my own shit, and the universe is pleasant enough to give me money to do it! That's the real world.

DanteSinger

VICE: How have you seen the Arts Fair change?
I've performed here from the very beginning and it's changed a lot. People are a bit more receptive than they used to be. A lot more artists come out to share their art. It's almost like some of the older people that used to go around when I first started singing jazz. They were not critical, they allowed you to grow as an artist and for you to be able to do what you wanted to do. They didn't laugh at you, didn't discourage you. It was just a lot of encouragement, and that's what this community tries to do. I try to do that as well.

Is that something you try to pass on?
The only way you can do that is not by tellin' 'em. You gotta show them. I went home, back to Milwaulkee. I got back there and I hired a band because I wanted to show my nieces and nephews what I do. They don't know! After I got finished... All of them that didn't know me, they understood me more, ran up to me. It was really awesome.

Where would you be without music?
I'd be lost. I'd be lost. I'd be lost! Music helps me be able to do everything that I need to do. I don't do it as much as I used to, but when people call me, I make sure that I show up. That's the way that the older guys taught me.

Houston (Bluesologist) and Khalif (Rapper)

Houston, left, and Khalif, right

VICE: What's all this commotion about?
Houston: Go on your iPhone right now and look up Roy Porter "Generation '94" and when you hear the song "Generation," it's him, Khalif right here. He recorded this twenty years ago in Leimert Park. This guy, Khalif, he's the Picasso of rap. And he disappeared for twenty years! He was like "Aren't you Houston?" I was Like, "Khalif!" We haven't seen each other in twenty years!

Care to elaborate?
Roy Porter was a be-bop drummer. When he was 23, he recorded with Charlie Parker on the Dial Records, "Night in Tunisia," "Loverman," all these important songs. When he was in his 70s, he came to Leimert Park where all the arts are, and he found this rap group Khalif was in. They were teenagers, I was like 30 or whatever. Roy Porter connected be-bop with hip-hop, and the album is called Generation 94 and Khalif raps on the track "Generation."

What's your booth about?
I'm a bluesologist. Everything on this table is about my blues journey. A bluesologist, Gil-Scott Heron says, is a scientist who is concerned with the roots of blues. From Paul Lawrence Dunbar in 1900, I will tell you how the bluesology writers came on down through Gertrude Stein and Langston Hughes in Paris, hanging with Picasso, into the 30s with the Harlem renaissance, Claude Mckay, Zora Neale Hurston and all them. I'll bring you into the 40s with Richard Wright, the 50s when James Baldwin was about to leave Harlem and go to Paris, into the 60s when Come Back Charleston Blue and Cotton Comes to Harlem were written by Chester Himes in Spain, the 1970s, Maya Angelou's first book, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker's first book. I will bring you from Nicki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Leroy Jones, all the way to the 80s, stop you at Colored Girls by Ntozake Shange, all the way into when hip-hop happened with KRS-One and Eric B and Rakim. All the way into the 2000s.

HenrietteCommunity Organizer

VICE: What's the LAPD all about?
Henriette: The LA Poverty Deparment was started by my husband, John Malpede, in 1985. He was a performance artist in New York, but Skid Row got his interest when, all of a sudden, there were homeless people in the streets here! There really weren't before. He got a job at legal aid, advocating on behalf of the homeless, but eventually, they pushed the desks aside, and started making theater based off of the testimonies homeless people had given to the lawyers.

On Noisey: A Portrait of Artists on Skid Row

Why did you start the festival?
We started the festival as a big community gathering for residents and service providers. We saw that a lot of initiatives came out of LAPD, people started their own theater group, or making poetry or making music. It's a network! Anyone can get in. We never do auditions. People walk in from the street and participate. And they look after each other, meet each other in the street, do their own stuff. We need spaces for the people here. There are a lot of artists here. We have a database of more than 500 artists! We didn't have the money to do a big inquiry or to bring scholars, but we thought, "OK, we can throw a festival in the park."

What was a standout performance today?
I loved Michael Jackson. She's been addicted so long and she has performed before, but this year, she got clean to do the performance! If you see her face, she looks so much better. She's got some meat on her bones. Those things, they really mean the most.

Jemayel Khawaja is Managing Editor of THUMP, Vice's channel for electronic music culture. He's on Twitter.

All pictures by Juliana Bernstein/Get Tiny Photography.

Photo via Flickr user Mark

Like those shitty marijuana leaf Canadian flags you see sold at kiosks inside strip malls everywhere, the image of Canada has become a little danker now that Justin Trudeauthe Liberal Party leader who has promised to legalize pot nationwidewas elected as our next prime minister.

Although Trudeau has yet to make any solid proposals as to how he will accomplish this or give a specific timeline for when he will do it, many Canadians are looking forward to a tsunami of legal, government-certified pot flooding our cities with glorious green. Until then, however, Canada's recreational stoners and college kids looking to score a few dry nugs for their frat party will turn to the only reliable source they have: drug dealers.

Curious what the Great North's weed dealers thought of JT's victory and the possibility of him legalizing the ganj, I reached out to dealers across Canada to chat about Canada's new leader.

Canadian Cannabis: The Dark Grey Market

Keith - Vancouver

VICE: How do you feel about Trudeau winning?
Fucking love it. The guy's a beauty.

What about him legalizing pot?
As a smoker, I love it, but it's going to kind of kill my business. No one's going to buy illegally when they can get it legally. Like, there's other problems too but it's more to do with the weed itself, y'know?

I don't, actually. What do you mean?
Like, I sell dabsa lot of dabsand that kind of stuff is super potent. I've heard that regulations in the States can really fuck with the is. I smoked with a bunch of my boys when Trudeau won. It's something to celebrate, even it's just for the culture and not necessarily for me.

Any job ideas if you quit dealing?
I go to school so I'm hoping my degree will take me somewhere as profitable after this. Hard to beat $900 a week from dropping off baggies in a van. I really liked retail so I could do that again, but it probably won't be the same.

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.

Check out Stephen Maurice Graham's website, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram.

Read: Time Travel Movies Are Garbage

Time travel is complicated and probably best left to people like Doc Brown or Rick, but let's see if we can parse this out: Today is October 21, 2015, which is the day in Back to the Future II that Marty McFly arrives from 1985 after Doc rolls up in his Mr. Fusion-modded Delorean. So far, so good.

Marty, as you all remember, had just spent a few weeks in the 1950s, where he narrowly avoided banging his mom and effectively changed the course of history and transformed his family from a bunch of drunk wimps into paragons of 1980s culture straight out of The Big Chill.

But before Marty had a chance to check out how his paradox-riddled foray into the past has changed the present (could Goldie Wilson be in the White House by 1985 after getting that early confidence boost from Marty?), he and Doc were racing to 2015 to continue to fuck the fragile space-time continuum faster than the Terminator movies.

For those of us who had to suffer the indomitable slog through the normal, day-to-day realities of the 90s and 00s, we've finally caught up to Doc and Marty's vibrant, Cubs-and-hoverboard-filled 2015. We may even get some self-lacing Nikes today, if we're lucky.

Marty won't be showing up until this evening, so we still have a few hours to prepare for the man's arrivaltime to get your Pinheads cover band together.

Photo via Flickr user Creativity103

A draft United Nations briefing paper expressing support for the decriminalization of personal possession of drugs was leaked Monday by Virgin Airlines founder Sir Richard Branson, a drug reform advocate. Days earlier, the New York Times had apparently asked President Obama's "drug czar" about the same document. Within a few hours of being made public, the paper was withdrawn and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) distanced itself from the document, suggesting that there had been an "unfortunate misunderstanding."

But the drama is actually just a sign that the foundations on which international drug policy sit are shiftingand that even the old guard at the United Nations is flirting with ending the global war on drugs.

As recently as five years ago, you'd have to be tripping sack to suggest such a document could be even considered by the hardcore drug warriors at the UN drug czar's office. Even now, the UNODC is still funding the drug control efforts of oppressive regimes like Iran, where nonviolent drug offenders get executed by the hundreds every year. But it's increasingly tricky to make a coherent argument for arresting and incarcerating people whose only crime is possession of drugs. And even if the case for legalizing sales of all currently illegal drugs is still on the fringes, the argument for ending criminal penalties for possession is more mainstream than ever.

For example, when I interviewed Nora Volkow, the head of the government's National Institute on Drug Abuse, for my forthcoming book, she told me that while she does not support legalizing sales, she opposes criminal penalties for drug users. "I don't believe in criminalizing the addict. I don't. Absolutely not," she said. And even Kevin Sabet, one of America's most vocal opponents of marijuana legalization, says that he believes people caught in possession of that drug should get treatment, not jail.

These days, it's awfully easy to find politicians making statements that at least sound like they support decriminalizationand harder than ever to find anyone explicitly supporting penalties for possession. Last month, Hillary Clinton wrote an op-ed about heroin aimed at New Hampshire primary voters, summing up her strategy as aiming to "prioritize treatment over prison for low-level and nonviolent drug offenders, so we can end the era of mass incarceration." And here's Carly Fiorina in May: "Drug addiction shouldn't be criminalized... We need to treat it appropriately." Tellingly, neither presidential candidateone from each partyseemed to limit her opposition to criminal penalties to mere marijuana offenses.

The UN draft document concisely lays out the arguments against arresting and incarcerating any type of drug user for possession. For one, it notes that fear of arrest has been "widely shown" to reduce access to clean needles and other health measures, "fueling HIV and hepatitis C epidemics among people who use drugs, and contributing to preventable deaths from those blood borne viruses and drug overdose." Incarcerating drug users also increases risk by concentrating high-risk people together.

Secondly, arrest and punishment obviously serves to stigmatize drug users, contributing to the shame that might make it more difficult for them to quit. As the briefing put it, the "heavy emphasis on criminalization has fueled high levels of discrimination against people who use drugs, including exclusion from workplace, from education, from child custody and from health care." It goes on to note that this often results in discrimination against racial minorities and also "fuels poverty and social exclusion, as having a criminal record can negatively affect access to future employment, education, housing, and child custody and also exercising civil rights such as voting."

Critically, criminal penalties for possession don't decrease rates of drug use. The US government spent more than $121 billion just to arrest and incarcerate nonviolent drug offenders between the time President Nixon first officially declared war on drugs in 1971 and 2010, nabbing some 37 million people during that period.

During the same period, while incarceration rates spiraled out of control and drug war spending was multiplied by a factor of 31 (even after adjusting for inflation), drug use and addiction rates did not fall in correlation with them.

For example, the percent of high school seniors who reported taking any illegal drug at least once was 55 percent in 1975, rose to 66 percent by 1981, and is now 49 percent. The most worrying type of drug habitsdaily usehas only ever reached reliably measurable proportions (1 percent or higher) in 12th graders when it came to marijuana, and was 6 percent in 1975. It was 5.8 percent in the most recent statistics from the government's 2014 Monitoring the Future study.

Meanwhile, research that looks directly at the impact of incarceration on people with addiction does not find it be particularly helpful. In fact, two studies that examined the correlation between incarceration and recovery found that being locked up recently was linked with reduced odds of getting better, in both cases, by about half.

As the UN draft document concludes, "imposing criminal sanctions for drug use and possession for personal consumption is neither necessary nor proportionate. On the contrary, punishment aggravates the behavioral, health and social conditions of the affected people." Indeed, the UNODC's own scientific advisory council, which includes NIDA's Volkow as a member, concluded last year that "criminal sanctions are not beneficial" when it came to fighting addiction.

Given the overwhelming data against criminalization, and the fact other arms of the UNincluding the World Health Organization and the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rightshave already come out in favor of decriminalization, what really seems strange here is that the document was withdrawn so decisively.

"I don't think anyone knows what really happened," says Jag Davies, director of communications strategy for the Drug Policy Alliance, who is following the story and wrote about it for the Huffington Post.

However, there are clearly some lessons here. For one, while even politicians now recognize that current policy is failing, they are unsure of how to frame politically acceptable alternatives. Vague statements like "end the drug war" or "reduce mass incarceration" or "replace punishment with treatment" all sound like endorsements of ending mass arrests of drug users for simple possession, but they haven't changed the fact that some 1.6 million Americans are arrested annually for drugs83 percent of them for possession, not sales.

Moreover, it's much easier to support decriminalizing marijuana possession and even sales because most people are personally familiar with the drug and know that it's use will not result in widespread doom. But the public is still very frightened of heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamineso the idea of "legalizing" personal possession of these drugs is much more terrifying, even when they can see that arresting people for them isn't working.

Portugal threaded this needle successfully in 2001, decriminalizing personal possession of all drugs and having police focus their efforts on fighting violent crime and dealing. Under this policy, if someone does come to the attention of the cops and has a small amount of drugs, he or she is taken to a "dissuasion committee." This group evaluates whether the person is a recreational or addicted user and recommendsbut does not forcetreatment if it is needed. Civil sanctions like losing drivers' licenses are sometimes imposed, but mostly, people are given options rather than punished.

The results have been the opposite of the orgy of drug-fueled chaos opponents predicted. Teen drug use has followed the trends seen elsewhere in Europe and remains low. As of 2010, for example, 13 percent of Portuguese 15-16 year olds reported marijuana use; the figure for the US that year was 32 percent for high school sophomores.

Overdose death, however, has been cut dramatically in Portugal: the rate is now 3 per million citizens, compared to the European Union average of 17.3. HIV rates have dropped, too, with new cases in IV drug users falling from 1,575 annually in 2000 to 78 in 2013. The number of people in rehab rose 41 percent, and the number of people in prison for drug charges fell from 44 percent in 1999 to 24 percent in 2013.

Check out our documentary 'Spice Boys' about synthetic cannabinoids in the United Kingdom.

So how can we get from where the US is now to there? Talking about "decriminalizing drug possession" or "legalizing" small amounts of drugs still scares some (mostly older) people. Instead, we need to emphasize that jail and prison neither deter drug use nor treat addictionand that the recovery movement and mental health goal of "destigmatizing addiction" is incompatible with incarcerating people for having symptoms of it.

If addicted people are really just sick, and not evil, arresting them reinforces the moral perspective, not the medical one. If the goal is public health, the strategy can't be one that is known to spread disease. If jailing people for marijuana use doesn't prevent addiction, why would jailing them for heroin or cocaine help?

Leaving aside for now all the issues that surround dealing, if anyone can make a data-based case for continuing to arrest and incarcerate millions of people for simple possession, I'd like to hear it.

Follow Maia Szalavitz on Twitter.

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Photo via Flickr user Marc Nozell

Read: We Asked an Expert What Would Have Happened if Joe Biden Became President

Vice President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he will not be pursuing a presidential bid in 2016, ending monthseven yearsof speculation as to whether he would take on Hillary Clinton in what would have been his third White House run.

Flanked by his President Barack Obama and his wife, Bidenwho has been polling as the most popular presidential candidate despite not actually being onesaid that his family has been going through the grieving process after the loss of his son, Beau, to brain cancer earlier this year, and that he does not feel like he can launch a successful bid this late in the game.

"Unfortunately, I believe we're out of timethe time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination," Biden said at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden. "While I will not be a candidate, I will not be silent. I intend to speak out clearly and forcefully, to influence as much as I can where we stand as a party and where we need to go as a nation."

Biden spoke at length about Beau and the strain a presidential run could put on his already-grieving family during a teary-eyed interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last month.

The vice president's decision not to run seems to clear the path for Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination. In a statement following his announcement Wednesday, the Democratic frontrunner called Biden a "good man and a great vice president," adding that "history isn't finished with Joe Biden."

Bernie Sanders, who is running in second in Democratic polls, similarly praised his almost-rival. "Joe Biden, a good friend, has made the decision that he feels is best for himself, his family and the country," Sanders said in a statement. "I thank the vice president for a lifetime of public service and for all that he has done for our nation. I look forward to continuing to work with him to address the major crises we face

Naturally, Republicans are spinning Biden's decision a different way. "The Vice President's decision not to enter the 2016 race is a major blow for Democrats, who now will almost certainly be saddled with their unpopular and scandal plagued front-runner Hillary Clinton," Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. Biden, he continued, "was the most formidable general election candidate the Democrat Party could have fielded, and his decision not to challenge Hillary Clinton greatly improves our chances of taking back the White House."

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Britain is going through a serious housing crisis right now. Residents in council houses are being evicted to make way for luxury properties, and many people feel increasingly alienated in their communities. Local councils don't have the money to replace houses lost under the government's increasingly fervent right-to-buy policies, and the waiting lists for a place to live are growing quickly.

Squatting is pretty uncommon today, but in 1970s and 80s London, the practice was a genuine option for many of those without the means to pay regular rent. Buildings in unfashionable parts of the city that today would be worth millions were left empty, and often councils turned a blind eye to their occupation. Photographer Mark Cawsona.k.a. Smilerwas an art student at the time, and spent his 20s bouncing between squats all over London. He photographed the properties he stayed in and the people he lived with as he went. After leaving art school, Mark struggled with substance abuse and family troubles, and hung up his camera. Now though, his images are being exhibited for the first time at London's ICA gallery.

When I chatted to Mark last week, he explained how he first occupied an empty house. When he started at Hornsey College of Art, squatting "wasn't even a choice," it was just the norm. "It was a way of being with your friends, it was a way of affordably housing yourself, being in a community together." Mark ended up living in empty properties all over the city, from an old hospital in Muswell Hill, to wealthy West London, to the thenworking class King's Cross.

He wasn't just living with other students, though. "There were a lot of artists and musicians in there... a lot of people from Ireland trying to make their way, people from Scotland, a real mix," he told me. "There's one photo of a guy, Sean. That was taken in a giant squat in Hammersmith called 'the School House'it was an old school. That was huge, and there's Sean in that basement, like a crypt."

Mark ended up moving from house to house, often couch surfing when he couldn't find a place to stay. Over the years, he lived and documented some of the most expensive neighborhoods in London, and some of the most impoverished: "I've lived on Talgarth Road, that six-lane hell hole into London from Hammersmith, it felt toxic really. From there I went to to a mansion in Knightsbridge, suddenly having to get my milk in Harrods." It was in King's Cross where he took some of his most powerful images, though. The area that's now been adopted by the likes of Google and the Guardian was not so long ago notorious for crime, prostitution, and drug abuse. Mark found himself in some old Victorian tenements, behind the station on Cromer Street. "There were gangsters, pimps, bikers, working girls and red light flats, but functional families too. Artists, alternative sorts, junkies, dealers; it was just a crazy mix. And there were vigilantes in Somerstown, It was quite a dark place, but I kind of normalized it. It's only looking back that I see it as it really was. Dark, dirty, and sooty, with lots of pretty bad things going on."

Sean's Basement (School House Squat), 1978. All photos by Mark Cawson

It was while living here that Mark began his slide into substance abuse, something that would eventually contribute to him abandoning photography for nearly 30 years. He admits that coming into contact with drug dealers and other addicts in the squats was a factor in his addiction, but doesn't see it as the sole influence.

"I don't think it was squatting that introduced me to that lifestyle," he said. "OK, I met it for the first time in the squat, but I was primed for it well before then. I was just getting in trouble with different types of things at different ages. I'd never blame it on the circumstance or the environment I was living in." Even so, the characters he talks about could be straight out of an Irvine Welsh novel. People like Dean*, "a dealer, and generally a bit of a criminal really, but a genuinely lovely guy. He always used to turn up out of the blue, it was a joy to see him around." Prostitutes feature in Mark's photos too, revealing the unglamorous reality of the sex trade: "There's Karen*, she was a working girl. You can see the damage that using has done to her hand, but she had such a big heart. There was something so eccentric, she had this runt of a Yorkshire terrier in her handbag, because she felt so sorry for it being the runt, so she tucked it into her handbag before she went out to work, with her Rothmans and her tin of hypodermics."

Sophie (Ladbroke Grove), 1980

Mark's experience of squatting in 80s London gave him an unfiltered view of the city. Despite being an art student, he lived alongside those struggling to stay out of poverty and avoid the law. Jimmy Cauty, an artist and one half of "stadium rave" act the KLF, had a pretty different experience of squattingit wasn't easy, but he didn't face the struggles that Mark put up with. His time in a squat demonstrates how it was a real housing alternative for a lot of young people, something that would be impossible today.

Jimmy had been squatting in Brixton since the late 70s, but in 1980 he moved into a Victorian terraced house in Stockwell, South London. He stayed there for over a decade, the longest he's ever lived in any house, despite the fact it was owned by the council. He told me of the tacit agreement eventually established between squatters and council: "They basically made all the squatters join housing co-ops, otherwise you'd get kicked out, so we joined North Lambeth housing co-op." Through the co-op, Jimmy was given access to funds and tools that were meant to be used for the upkeep of the house, but, as his band the KLF were gaining recognition and chart success, he used the money to build a studio instead. "The council actually gave me about 3,000 to put into my private account to do the house up, which seems bizarre. Especially as we were a band and needed to buy equipment... I put a studio in the basement. I don't know how I got away with it. The poor neighbours. I mean now I feel really sorry for them, but at the time it didn't bother me."

Related: VICE Talks Film with Shane Meadows

The squat gave name to the KLF's 1991 single "Last Train to Trancentral." In the track it referred to an abstract place of spiritual awakening, but the band knew it as the old terrace in Stockwell. An article in Melody Maker described it: "The kitchen is heated by means of leaving the three functioning gas rings on at full blast until the fumes make us all feel stoned, there's a bag of litter in the hallway that everybody trips over going in and out of the place, as well as a very old motorbike...There are also a couple of streetwise-looking cats conducting a permanent jihad with fur flying everywhere, and bits of crust from breakfast's toast still uncleared from the table."

Eventually, this Withnail and I-meets-Cribs existence had to come to an end. According to Jimmy, "co-op meetings were a bit weird, because people would say 'I just saw you on Top of the Pops, what's going on? You're not supposed to use the co-op van for things like that, you're supposed to use it for picking up materials...' We were earning a huge amount of money, which you could in music in those days. So in the end, in about 1992, I just had to move out and buy a house, it was becoming ridiculous."

Diana (King's Cross) 1980-82

Although Jimmy and Mark saw squatting from opposite ends of the spectrum, they both agree that doing the same thing today would be impossible. In 2012 changes in the law made squatting a criminal rather than a civil matter. Jimmy's stepdaughter squats now, but she'll never find another Trancentral: "She can only be in industrial buildings, and they get kicked out all the time. It's a very transitory existence, there's none of that stability. Obviously back in the old days you could last for years, and it was quite secure. But now they get moved on constantly."

Mark has picked up his camera again recently, and now photographs today's housing crisis and the activists fighting against it. One thing he's noticed about modern squatting is that it's become an overtly political act: "They stick out like sore thumbs. You can't just blend in to the community. Squatting seems to have become a political statement, rather than just living somewhere. I suppose they know it's only a matter of weeks before they're moved on... It seems much more nihilistic now. It's not like trying to blend in and have a nice quiet secure time, it's far more desperate."

16th Floor Squat (Latimer Road), 1980

Patrice (Ladbroke Grove), 1983

Ramona in the pub, 1979-80

Chalk Drawing (Camden), 1989

Dan (Dixon House, Latimer Road), 1980

Smiler: Photographs of London opens at the ICA , London on October 12.

*Names have been changed.

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