Synopsis
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 the Preface to the Indian edition, he mentions the drug trails in India and the responsibility of this huge and populous country in regulating drug trafficking.
In reporting on the frontlines across the globe — from the streets of London’s King’s Cross to the killing fields of Central America and 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.
Details
15 December 2019
9789389109337Reviews
"Many people assume that as the war on drugs has failed and because a few countries have liberated cannabis as a recreational drug as well as a medicine, the "drug problem" is solved. This new book powerfully demolishes any such complacency that might have developed in the west. Drug wars represent a major, ongoing world-wide disaster. This book is a must-read for anyone pursuing a rational policy debate about drugs."
--Dr. David Nutt, author of Drugs without the Hot Air (UIT Press), and The Neurobiology of Addiction (OUP)."Antony Loewenstein is an amazing journalist and this is an amazing book. Anyone who cares about the war on drugs--one of the biggest catastrophes in the world--should read this superb book right away."
--Johann Hari, author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections"In this vivid, partisan piece of reportage, Australian journalist Loewenstein (Disaster Capitalism) depicts the catastrophic human consequences of the U.S.-led war on drugs and advocates for the legalisation of all illicit substances. Loewenstein argues that America's prohibitionist policy serves not to counter abuse or impede trafficking, but rather to create corrupt "narco states" that are complicit with the federal government's foreign policy goals...Readers inclined to take a skeptical view of the drug war...will welcome Loewenstein's advocacy."
--Publishers Weekly"A critique of the war on drugs, which, by the author's account, is mostly a war on the poor and dispossessed...The author examines several fronts in a war fought by Western governments, especially the U.S., on harder drugs that 'are consumed nightly in such major cities as London, Sydney, New York, and Paris'...A sometimes overwrought but pressing survey calling into question a war that would seem to benefit only its combatants."
--Kirkus Reviews
