 [Larger view] | Drug Crazy : How We Got into This Mess and How We Can Get Out
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| The War on Drugs: Power, Race, and Money! | |
| This book is an excellent companion to Smoke and Mirrors : The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, by Dan Baum. While Baum's history of the Drug War starts with the Nixon administration and focuses on the domestic consequences, Mike Gray's history lesson goes back to Harry Anslinger, who headed the Bureau of Narcotics (the precursor to the DEA) for decades and engineered mountains of bogus evidence about the national "drug problem" in order to build and sustain his empire. Gray examines the history of alcohol prohibition as well as the horrific effect that the Drug War has had in South and Central America. Both Baum and Gray spotlight the soaring prison population and the shattered lives of drug war prisoners. Gray's book illustrates the shear impossibility of an interdiction based approach by pointing out that the ports of entry are countless and border guards can double their yearly incomes by turning a blind eye for two minutes. Mike Gray wrote the screenplay for The China Syndrome, and he brings his talents as a story teller to this project, which makes it extremely readable. | |
| An easy read, certain to raise your blood pressure... | |
| This book should be a real eye-opener to the average citizen. It is an easy read of only 240 pages, so even the most time-pressed will be able to get through it in a week or two of spare moments. Mike Gray takes us through the past 90 years of the American drug war and also parallels it with the alcohol prohibition of the 1920's. Some has expressed disdain over the author's lack of detail on a solution to the status quo. The purpose of this book appears to focus mainly on what is wrong with the current situation -- an example of what not to do. He does call for reform of drug laws and policies, and it's up to the reader to realize that the solution is not too far off from the solution of the alcohol problem during the prohibition era -- to repeal prohibition. Buy it. Read it. Get all your friends to read it. While you're still fired up over it... write a letter to your local congressperson expressing your feelings... well, maybe you should write the letter after you cool down a little -- but not too much. | |
| Great book! | |
| Rather than taking the prohibition argument and tearing it apart point by point, Gray introduces us to the, at times, unbelievable players behind the movement, and how these individuals could manipulate public opinion about drugs through misinformation and flat-out lies. Gray is good at analysing the forces behind the enactment of drug laws-political motivations, greed, and religious fundamentalism. His chapters about fighting drug trafficking are extremely terrifying. His argument-prohibition is immoral-needs no more justification when we learn about the multitude of violence the drug wars create. An excellent book. |
