Download or read book Smoke and Mirrors written by Dan Baum and published by Little Brown. This book was released on 1996 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that despite increasing levels of government action, illicit drugs are more readily available than ever, and analyzes the failure of our drug policy

Download or read book The War on Drugs written by David Farber and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revealing look at the history and legacy of the "War on Drugs" Fifty years after President Richard Nixon declared a "War on Drugs," the United States government has spent over a trillion dollars fighting a losing battle. In recent years, about 1.5 million people have been arrested annually on drug charges—most of them involving cannabis—and nearly 500,000 Americans are currently incarcerated for drug offenses. Today, as a response to the dire human and financial costs, Americans are fast losing their faith that a War on Drugs is fair, moral, or effective. In a rare multi-faceted overview of the underground drug market, featuring historical and ethnographic accounts of illegal drug production, distribution, and sales, The War on Drugs: A History examines how drug war policies contributed to the making of the carceral state, racial injustice, regulatory disasters, and a massive underground economy. At the same time, the collection explores how aggressive anti-drug policies produced a “deviant” form of globalization that offered economically marginalized people an economic life-line as players in a remunerative transnational supply and distribution network of illicit drugs. While several essays demonstrate how government enforcement of drug laws disproportionately punished marginalized suppliers and users, other essays assess how anti-drug warriors denigrated science and medical expertise by encouraging moral panics that contributed to the blanket criminalization of certain drugs. By analyzing the key issues, debates, events, and actors surrounding the War on Drugs, this timely and impressive volume provides a deeper understanding of the role these policies have played in making our current political landscape and how we can find the way forward to a more just and humane drug policy regime.

Download or read book Transforming the War on Drugs written by Annette Idler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-01 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The war on drugs has failed, but consensus in the international drug policy debate on the way forward is missing. Amidst this moment of uncertainty, militarized lenses on the global illicit drug problem continue to neglect the complexity of the causes and consequences that this war is intended to defend or defeat. Challenging conventional thinking in defense and security sectors, Transforming the War on Drugs constitutes the first comprehensive and systematic effort to theoretically, conceptually, and empirically investigate the impacts of the war on drugs. The contributors trace the consequences of the war on drugs across vulnerable regions, including South America and Central America, West Africa, the Middle East and the Golden Crescent, the Golden Triangle, and Russia. It demonstrates that these consequences are 'glocal'. The war's local impacts on human rights, security, development, and public health are interdependent with transnational illicit flows. The book further reveals how these impacts have influenced the positions of governments across these regions, with significant ramifications for the international drug control regime. Crucially, it shows that, at a time when global order is in flux, critically evaluating the regime's securitization through the war on drugs provides key insights into other global governance realms.

Download or read book Beyond the War on Drugs written by Steven Wisotsky and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 1990-03 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This provocative and controversial book rejects the popular pablum of more laws, more money, more enforcement personnel, and more jails as the road to victory in the "war on drugs." Author Steven Wisotsky masterfully documents the failure of the drug war and the erroneous premise central to its destructive and doomed strategy: the idea that drug taking controls human behavior; that drugs "cause" physical dependency. Americans must move beyond the war on drugs by repudiating their obsessive preoccupation with controlling or prohibiting drugs. Instead, we must replace this mindset with a new view that acknowledges individual freedom and the power of directing our choices toward responsible human behavior. According to Wisotsky, the idea of "waging war" on drugs is central to the problem rather than a fundamental part of any solution. He takes the Reagan-Bush-Bennett campaign to task for its failed efforts to cut the supply of drugs, reduce public demand, and enforce laws regarding the sale and distribution of controlled substances. Wisotsky contends that the war on drugs will remain inadequate so long as society continues to be seduced by the battle cries of its own stepped-up combat in which the "enemy" (drugs) must be eradicated at all cost. The rationale for doing battle has become so embedded in the public mind that we no longer recognize the need for a critical review of social policy, strategy, or the methods needed to achieve our desired goals. Have we simply created a new type of Prohibition, which is destined to fail? And if this is the case, then what does it say about our society? Have we lost the ability to reflect critically on our social motives and purposes, as well as our justification for the actions we take, simply because we've declared "war" on the "enemy" and we aren't going to stop the good fight until we've "won"? Beyond the War on Drugs offers hard-hitting arguments to support the growing public opinion that this war, as it is currently conceived, cannot be won and ought not to be fought. Wisotsky argues persuasively for a reassessment of this struggle. We must go beyond the war on drugs to develop a public policy that acknowledges human intelligence, free choice, and individual responsibility.

Download or read book Ending the War on Drugs written by and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-03-24 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the last 50 years, drug prohibition laws have put the market for illegal drugs into the hands of organised criminals. Now, it’s time to take control. Ending the failed war on drugs will reduce drug-related violence, tackle organised crime, end the needless criminalisation of millions, and will halt the drain on government funds and resources. In this book, global opinion-leaders on the frontline of the drug debate describe their experiences and perspectives on what needs to be done. Highlighting the pitfalls behind drug policy to-date and bringing to light new policies and approaches, which make a clear case for galvanizing governments to end the war on drugs – once and for all.

Download or read book The War on Drugs and the Global Colour Line written by Kojo Koram and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty years of the War on Drugs has led to millions of deaths, displacements, and incarcerations. Disproportionately enacted on oppressed races, international drug prohibition has reinforced the color line across the globe. This collection reveals the racist impact of the war on drugs across multiple continents and in numerous situations, from racialized drug policing at festivals in the United Kingdom to the necropolitical wars in Juarez, Mexico, and from the exchange of drug policing programs between the United States and Israel to the management of black bodies in Brazil. Pushing forward the debate and activism led by groups such as Black Lives Matter and calling for radical changes in drug policy legislation and prison reform, this collection proves that the problem of drugs and race is an international, and intentional, disaster.

Download or read book The War on Drugs written by Paula Mallea and published by Dundurn.com. This book was released on 2014-06-28 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the spectacular failure of the war on drugs to weaken drug cartels and the illegal drug supply, as well as the modern history of drug use and abuse, the pharmacology of illegal drugs, and the economy of the illegal drug trade.

Download or read book The Dope The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade written by Benjamin T. Smith and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A myth-busting, 100-year history of the Mexican drug trade that reveals how an industry founded by farmers and village healers became dominated by cartels and kingpins. The Mexican drug trade has inspired prejudiced narratives of a war between north and south, white and brown; between noble cops and vicious kingpins, corrupt politicians and powerful cartels. In this first comprehensive history of the trade, historian Benjamin T. Smith tells the real story of how and why this one-peaceful industry turned violent. He uncovers its origins and explains how this illicit business essentially built modern Mexico, affecting everything from agriculture to medicine to economics—and the country’s all-important relationship with the United States. Drawing on unprecedented archival research; leaked DEA, Mexican law enforcement, and cartel documents; and dozens of harrowing interviews, Smith tells a thrilling story brimming with vivid characters—from Ignacia “La Nacha” Jasso, “queen pin” of Ciudad Juárez, to Dr. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, the crusading physician who argued that marijuana was harmless and tried to decriminalize morphine, to Harry Anslinger, the Machiavellian founder of the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who drummed up racist drug panics to increase his budget. Smith also profiles everyday agricultural workers, whose stories reveal both the economic benefits and the human cost of the trade. The Dope contains many surprising conclusions about drug use and the failure of drug enforcement, all backed by new research and data. Smith explains the complicated dynamics that drive the current drug war violence, probes the U.S.-backed policies that have inflamed the carnage, and explores corruption on both sides of the border. A dark morality tale about the American hunger for intoxication and the necessities of human survival, The Dope is essential for understanding the violence in the drug war and how decades-old myths shape Mexico in the American imagination today.

Download or read book This Is Your Mind on Plants written by Michael Pollan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The instant New York Times bestseller | A Washington Post Notable Book | One of NPR's Best Books of the Year “Expert storytelling . . . [Pollan] masterfully elevates a series of big questions about drugs, plants and humans that are likely to leave readers thinking in new ways.” —New York Times Book Review From #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Pollan, a radical challenge to how we think about drugs, and an exploration into the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants—and the equally powerful taboos. Of all the things humans rely on plants for—sustenance, beauty, medicine, fragrance, flavor, fiber—surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate or calm, fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience. Take coffee and tea: People around the world rely on caffeine to sharpen their minds. But we do not usually think of caffeine as a drug, or our daily use as an addiction, because it is legal and socially acceptable. So, then, what is a “drug”? And why, for example, is making tea from the leaves of a tea plant acceptable, but making tea from a seed head of an opium poppy a federal crime? In This Is Your Mind on Plants, Michael Pollan dives deep into three plant drugs—opium, caffeine, and mescaline—and throws the fundamental strangeness, and arbitrariness, of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs while consuming (or, in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants. Why do we go to such great lengths to seek these shifts in consciousness, and then why do we fence that universal desire with laws and customs and fraught feelings? In this unique blend of history, science, and memoir, as well as participatory journalism, Pollan examines and experiences these plants from several very different angles and contexts, and shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively—as a drug, whether licit or illicit. But that is one of the least interesting things you can say about these plants, Pollan shows, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. Based in part on an essay published almost twenty-five years ago, this groundbreaking and singular consideration of psychoactive plants, and our attraction to them through time, holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds, and our entanglement with the natural world.

Download or read book Ending the War on Drugs written by Dirk Chase Eldredge and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2000 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A conservative Republican examines how and why America is losing the war against illegal drugs-and presents a case for carefully controlled legalization."--

Download or read book Killer High written by Peter Andreas and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: How drugs made war and war made drugs -- Drunk on the front -- Where there's smoke there's war -- Caffeinated conflict -- Opium, empire, and Geopolitics -- Speed warfare -- Cocaine wars -- Conclusion: The drugged battlefields of the 21st century .

Download or read book Chasing the Scream written by Johann Hari and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-01-20 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times Bestseller What if everything you think you know about addiction is wrong? Johann Hari's journey into the heart of the war on drugs led him to ask this question--and to write the book that gave rise to his viral TED talk, viewed more than 62 million times, and inspired the feature film The United States vs. Billie Holiday and the documentary series The Fix. One of Johann Hari's earliest memories is of trying to wake up one of his relatives and not being able to. As he grew older, he realized he had addiction in his family. Confused, not knowing what to do, he set out and traveled over 30,000 miles over three years to discover what really causes addiction--and what really solves it. He uncovered a range of remarkable human stories--of how the war on drugs began with Billie Holiday, the great jazz singer, being stalked and killed by a racist policeman; of the scientist who discovered the surprising key to addiction; and of the countries that ended their own war on drugs--with extraordinary results. Chasing the Scream is the story of a life-changing journey that transformed the addiction debate internationally--and showed the world that the opposite of addiction is connection.

Download or read book President Rodrigo Duterte and the War on Drugs written by William N. Holden and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-10-01 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since his election in 2016, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has directed a brutal anti-drug campaign rife with extrajudicial killings. Interpreting the war on drugs through the conceptual frameworks of penal populism, noble cause corruption, revanchism, and state terrorism, William N. Holden argues the war on drugs has failed to achieve its purpose, follows trends of authoritarian populism, and overlooks a more pressing social issue—the vulnerability of the Philippines to climate change.

Download or read book Pills Powder and Smoke written by Antony Loewenstein and published by Scribe Publications. This book was released on 2019-08-21 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like the never-ending war on terror, the drugs war is a multi-billion-dollar industry that won’t go down without a fight. Pills, Powder, and Smoke explains why. The war on drugs has been official American policy since the 1970s, with the UK, Europe, and much of the world following suit. It is at best a failed policy, according to bestselling author Antony Loewenstein. Its direct results have included mass incarceration in the US, extreme violence in different parts of the world, the backing of dictatorships, and surging drug addiction globally. And now the Trump administration is unleashing diplomatic and military forces against any softening of the conflict. Pills, Powder, and Smoke investigates the individuals, officials, activists, victims, DEA agents, and traffickers caught up in this deadly war. Travelling through the UK, the US, Australia, Honduras, the Philippines, and Guinea-Bissau, Loewenstein uncovers the secrets of the drug war, why it’s so hard to end, and who is really profiting from it. In reporting on the frontlines across the globe — from the streets of London’s King’s Cross to the killing fields of Central America to major cocaine transit routes in West Africa — Loewenstein reveals how the war on drugs has become the most deadly war in modern times. Designed and inspired by Washington, its agenda has nothing to do with ending drug use or addiction, but is all about controlling markets, territories, and people. Instead, Loewenstein argues, the legalisation and regulation of all drugs would be a much more realistic and humane approach. The evidence presented in this book will persuade many readers that he’s right.

Download or read book The New War on Drugs written by Eric L. Jensen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1998 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The War on Drugs written by David Farber and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fifty years after President Richard Nixon declared a "War on Drugs," leading scholars examine how drug war policies contributed to the making of the carceral state, racial injustice, deviant globalization, regulatory disasters, and a massive underground economy; they also point the way forward to a more just and humane drug policy regime"--

Download or read book The War on Drugs II written by James A. Inciardi and published by McGraw-Hill Humanities, Social Sciences & World Languages. This book was released on 1992 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: