War on Drugs

This meticulously researched study represents the first effort to provide a nonpartisan and objective analysis of how the United States should approach the drug legalization question. It surveys what is known about the effects of different drug policies in Western Europe and what happened when cocaine and heroin were legal in the US a century ago. The book shows that legalization involves different tradeoffs between health and crime and the interests of the inner city minority communities and the middle class. The book explains why it is so difficult to accomplish substantial reform of drug policy.

Why does the administration continue to follow a drug policy of criminalization and enforcement? In this probing volume, Johns demonstrates that while the War on Drugs has been a failure in some respects, it has been highly successful in others--it has diverted attention from severe social problems, legitimated the virtual abandonment of the lower class, legitimated a vast expansion of U.S. state power and a consequent erosion of civil liberties, and furthered projections of U.S. power into Latin America. This book changes a trend in the literature by unmasking the real consequences of the Drug War.

While much has been written on illicit drug use, policy, and drugs' relationship to crime, this study examines the drug war as most Americans have experienced it--through mass-mediated rhetoric: presidential drug war declarations, news stories and hype, public service announcements, and the like. Such rhetoric influences public opinion about illegal drugs, drug users, presidents, and the drug war itself. And according to this author, such rhetoric is also used as a public relations campaign designed to increase the popularity of government officials and to assure quiescence regarding particular policy programs. This study demonstrates the underestimated influence of rhetoric, political uses of public relations and the powerful influence they have on public opinion and the policy process.

This important work identifies the problems of counter-drug intelligence and points toward a remedy for the failed anti-drug policies in the United States through the effective use of open source intelligence.

This timely handbook surveys the U.S. government's efforts to control illegal drugs. Inciardi and his contributors offer a useful way of thinking about and understanding the problem of illegal drugs, and provide the history of and research on drug policy so that policy makers have a necessary tool for developing a realistic and effective national drug policy.

The Latin American narcotics trade is an important national security issue for the United States because it is destabilizing important Latin American allies and creating serious social problems within the United States. Frustration with the inability to block the flow of cocaine, marijuana, and heroin from Latin America prompted passage of major national anti-drug laws in 1986 and 1988. Throughout the decade, United States narcotics policy has created serious friction between the United States and Latin America yet, according to Mabry, it essentially has failed in its goals. An extensive bibliography is included, designed to give other scholars and those interested in this issue an excellent start for further research.

Debates over the use and abuse of drugs, the laws controlling drugs in this country, and the question of whether or not certain drugs should be legally available have inflamed Americans since the 19th-century, and continue to flourish as America attempts to rage its "war on drugs." Students can trace the history and development of these arguments, as well as the reactions to them, through this unique collection of over 250 primary documents. Court cases, speeches, laws, opinion pieces, and other documents bring to life the controversies surrounding the issues. Explanatory introductions to documents aid users in understanding the various arguments put forth, while illuminating the significance of each document.

The drug problem in South Asia is mounting. This work provides an inside story of the pro-revenue drug policies pursued by the British colonial authorities and post-independent governments in South Asia.