Busted Stone Cowboys, Narco-Lords and Washington's War on Drugs

by Gray, Mike

• ISBN13: 9781560254324
• ISBN10: 1560254327
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-11-08
• Publisher: Bold Type Books

Summary

Thirty years ago Richard Nixon called drugs "the modern curse of youth" and launched the modern "War on Drugs" as we know it. Thirty years later, even the conservative National Review has said, "The War on Drugs has failed." Spanning three decades, Busted tells readers why, charting the violence, chaos, and corruption that the War on Drugs has spawned. It includes frontline reporting from all over the world, literary journalism, public records, and provocative commentary from the left and right. P. J. O'Rourke writes, "Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows.... Prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could." And Christopher Hitchens has charged that the drug war involves "a demented overseas entanglement, with off-the-record U.S. military aircraft running shady missions over Colombia and Peru, and high-level collaboration with ruthless and unaccountable 'Special Forces.' Colombia doesn't look any more like the U.S. as a result, but the U.S. does look a lot more like Colombia." From the crack dens of South Central L.A. to Iran Contra, from Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" to Plan Columbia, here is a collection of the most provocative, dissenting writing on the drug wars. Contributors include Gore Vidal, Alexander Cockburn, William Buckley Jr., Milton Friedman, Gary Webb, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, and a jailhouse interview with General Manuel Noriega by Oliver Stone.

Author Biography

Mike Gray is the author of Drug Crazy and the screenwriter of The China Syndrome. He has produced the award-winning documentaries American Revolution and The Murder of Fred Hampton. Gray has written for the Nation, the Los Angeles Times, and Rolling Stone. He is the chair of Common Sense for a Drug Policy, a D.C.-based pressure group.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
SOUTH OF THE BORDER
Blow Back	3	(14)
T. D. Allman
A Talk with Manuel Noriega	17	(14)
Oliver Stone
Teachings of Don Fernando: A Life and Death in the Narcotics Trade	31	(20)
Charles Bowden
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX
George Soro's Long Strange Trip: A Philanthropist Defies Drug War Orthodoxy	51	(12)
Russ Baker
What Do We Do When the Drug War Stops?	63	(4)
Rowena Young
BYO Heroin	67	(4)
Maurice Frank
World Leaders on Dope: Right Joins Left in Call for An End to the Drug War	71	(6)
Russ Kick
Mayor Rocky Anderson Talks about What It's Like to . . . Drop the D.A.R.E. Program	77	(4)
Alexandra Eyle
Breaking out of the 12-Step Lockstep	81	(4)
Maia Szalavitz
Drug Abuse Treatment or Drug Treatment Abuse Maia Szalavitz	85	(6)
THE BUSINESS
Re-engineering the Drug Business	91	(18)
Matthew Brzezinski
Workaday World, Crack Economy: Breaking Rocks in El Barrio	109	(12)
Philippe Bourgois
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
America's Lonely Drug War	121	(4)
Adam J. Smith
America's Dirty War on Drugs	125	(2)
Christopher Hitchens
Why Dutch Drug Policy Threatens the U.S.	127	(10)
Craig Reinarman
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
The Drug Wars: Voices from the Street	137	(12)
Tim Wells
William Triplett
This is Your Bill of Rights	149	(6)
Graham Boyd
Jack Hitt
Smash-up Policing: When Law Enforcement Goes Military	155	(4)
Dave Kopel
Casualty in the War on Drugs	159	(10)
Jim Dwyer
THE VIEW FROM THE FORTIETH FLOOR
There's No Justice in the War on Drugs: Can Our Laws Be Moral if They Have So Racist an Effect?	169	(4)
Milton Friedman
Commonsense Drug Policy	173	(14)
Ethan A. Nadelmann
My Problem With the War on Drugs	187	(10)
P. J. O'Rourke
The War On Drugs Is Lost	197	(16)
William. F. Buckley, Jr.
Kurt Schmoke
Joseph McNamara
Robert W. Sweet
The Politics of Ecstasy	213	(4)
Charles S. Grob
A Mother's Advice about Drugs	217	(2)
Marsha Rosenbaum
The Myth of ``Harmless'' Marijuana	219	(4)
John P. Walters
The Problem is Pot Prohibition	223	(4)
Keith Stroup
Paul Armentano
CONSERVATIVE COMPASSION
Dope Fiends: A Tape Transcript	227	(6)
A. M. Rosenthal
Barry McCaffrey
America's Altered States: When Does Legal Relief of Pain Become Illegal Pursuit of Pleasure?	233	(24)
Joshua Wolf Shenk
The War on (Some) Drugs	257	(4)
Stephen Jay Gould
No Relief in Sight	261	(12)
Jacob Sullum
Whither Medical Marijuana	273	(8)
Lester Grinspoon
About the Contributors	281	(4)
Resources	285