Pills, Powder, and Smoke: inside the bloody war on drugs

by Antony Loewenstein

Save 16%

$19.00

$15.99

Account Type

Format

Quantity

Author: Antony Loewenstein

Publisher: Scribe US

Paperback:
ISBN 10: 1947534947
ISBN 13: 978-1947534940

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 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.

Review

“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 legalization 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

Praise for Disaster Capitalism:

“Chilling study, based on careful and courageous reporting, and illuminated with perceptive analysis, helps us understand all too well the saying that man is a wolf to man.”
–Noam Chomsky

“A journey into a world of mutated economics and corrupt politics that we ignore at our peril.”
–John Pilger

“I am very grateful that Antony Loewenstein has brought his meticulous reporting to this subject, and the result is a keenly observed and timely investigation into rampant resource plunder, privatised detention centres, and an array of other forms of corporate rapacity on four continents. This book will serve as a potent weapon for shock resistors around the world.”
–Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine

About the Author

Antony Loewenstein is a Jerusalem-based Australian journalist who has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, the BBC, The Washington Post, The Nation, Huffington Post, Haaretz, and many others. He is the author of Disaster Capitalism: making a killing out of catastrophe; the writer/co-producer of the associated documentary, Disaster Capitalism; and the co-director of an Al-Jazeera English film on the opioid drug tramadol. His other books include My Israel Question, The Blogging Revolution, and Profits of Doom, and he is the co-editor of the books Left Turn and After Zionism, and is a contributor to For God’s Sake.

antonyloewenstein.com

@antloewenstein

Filters

Drug Dependency

Pills, Powder, and Smoke: inside the bloody war on drugs