Anthony Loewenstein takes a close examination of the war on drugs all across the globe, visiting numerous countries and conducting interviews with people on all sides of the issues in their home country. He started his search in Honduras, which he characterizes as having become one of the most dangerous places in the world, where climate changes and violence done by the U.S. backed military has become increasingly brutal and lawless, as well as by the drug cartels, leaving many feeling there is little option but to flee.
He moved on to Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, which has become a way-station for drugs being smuggled from South America to Europe. Here he begins to examine the link between drug marketing and terrorism. There is increasing drug use in this country, and across Africa, he finds, with little in the way of treatment for addiction.
In the Philippines, the author looks back at the islands' history, including occupation by the U.S. in the 1880's, up through the reign of a dictator who "unleashed a campaign against the destitute" while leaving the rich drug leaders untouched. I learned that a drug called "shabu", a mixture of cocaine and caffeine is the drug-of-choice for many.
In the U.S. the author, who is largely in favor of legalization with management and regulation, finds that in Colorado, following legalization of marijuana, more people are hospitalized and using the E.R. due to drug issues, and mental health issues related to cannibals use are on the increase. The Just Say No campaign has been an enormous failure, he found, as has mandatory minimum sentencing, filling prisons with nonviolent drug users or those dealing with addictions.
The author also visited England and Australia, where he once again found huge failures in the war against drugs, and increasing social crisis. Through all these countries, the author interviewed drug users, leaders in the drug war, politicians, and those advocating for change. In certain locales he found some new and more hopeful policies and practices in this on-going battle to not necessarily end the misuse of drugs, but to find ways to assist those who are desperate for different approaches, to use of "harm minimization" strategies. He explores the legitimate use of certain drugs for treatment of varying physical and mental illnesses, legalization and regulation of all drugs, medically supervised injection centers, and expanded treatment for those seeking to escape addiction. I found this book to be very well researched, and the author to be quite knowledgeable of his subject.
I received a copy of this book from Library Thing through their Early Reviewers program. ( )

Great book on the failed war on drugs beginning from it's racist roots, continuing onto it's militaristic tactics, tyrannical and detrimental effects on the public at large. Time to end the madness! The threat of drug policy is more dangerous than the threat from drugs themselves. It is the war on drugs itself that has spawned the cartels and our government has been involved with drug dealing for a long time. I am a recovered addict and ironically believe all drugs should be legal! I also believe a "free" people should be allowed to put in their bodies whatever they like. Evidence shows that drug use has plummeted where they have been legalized. The human and financial cost of the war on drugs is too much, not to mention the corruption of the governments involved, including our own. This books tells the story! ( )

The drug war is a failure and the United States bears the primary responsibility for that failure. This is the central premise of the book. If you disagree with it, you have no reason to be anywhere near this book other than hate-reading.

That aside, this seems like an adequate look into the failures of drug war policy around the world. The author primarily focuses on white Anglophone audiences, spending roughly the first half of the book on Honduras, Guinea-Bissau and the Philippines, while the second half covers the US, UK, and Australia. Each country gets a chapter of the book, and the closing chapter covers possible solutions to various problems mentioned in it.

The book opens with an anti-Semitic quote from Nixon, which is certainly a strong opening note. The author focuses first on suppliers and traffickers in Honduras and Guinea-Bissau, touches on the bloody carnage in the Philippines, and goes into a lot of policy and discourse issues in the Anglophone countries.

I noticed a number of glaring basic mistakes in the American chapter that were serious enough to detract from the rating I gave the book. Washington DC is not a state, and saying "Washington state" does nothing but confuse the reader when the writer clearly believes Washington DC to be a state - does he mean the actual state with Seattle in it, or does he mean the nation's capital? Further, and even more egregious, Obama did not lose in a head-on election with Trump in 2016. One could argue "Obama's legacy versus Trump's currency" in that election, but it was not presented that way in the text. I don't know how a serious journalist or anyone who does research on anything could have made a mistake on something so simple that could be answered by Googling "who ran in and won the American Presidential election of 2016?"

Apart from that, the author clearly put in a lot of mileage and time interviewing a lot of people around the world. American drug prohibitionist policy is regularly and rightfully excoriated for its wastefulness of money and human lives while utterly and totally failing to solve the problem - our country has been arresting, confiscating, killing, and otherwise trying to brute force our way out of the problem since the 1970s and nothing has worked yet. The UK and Australia come in for large doses of criticism for their cowardice in clinging to the failed American model. I was particularly appalled by the Australian writer who called for sterilization of drug users - fortunately other Australians correctly called her position Nazi-esque. I was also totally unsurprised to find out that there was an American group pushing this monstrous position, despite the American experience with racist eugenics programs that existed in the last few decades. The author talks about legalizing psychedelics in his "solutions" chapter, but did not seem to have spent time in Colorado, where some people have been trying to decriminalize psychedelics.

Trying to keep people from using drugs by arresting or killing them and confiscating their possessions has not worked and will never work, no matter how loudly prohibitionists squawk about continuing their failed policies. The question is how countries will adapt to the reality of marijuana legalization. I would have liked to see more information on how drug trafficking to Europe through Africa works, but that was not really the premise of this book. ( )

I'm frankly surprised at all the positive reviews this book has (although two of them are from the publisher, not exactly unbiased). While I agree with the author's premise, I thought the book was poorly written and possibly even more poorly researched.

As for the poorly written part, this book is not well organized. The author will sometimes talk about something (like pill testing, for example) without defining what it is, and go on and on about how great it is, before finally explaining the concept. He will just kind of vomit out these endless flows of statistics. Sometimes he will end an otherwise coherent paragraph with a complete non sequitur of a statistic.

As for the author's own research, I'm sure he's got all of his facts right about the nitty gritty of the drug war, at least I hope. But he certainly has no idea how the United States works. He goes on about Washington state being the home of the US congress (um, that's news to me and all the residents of Washington state!), and talks about how "thanks to a strange clause in the constitution" that "Washington was unlike the 50 other US states" (clearly referring to Washington DC). PROBABLY BECAUSE IT ISN'T A STATE. He also writes "Obama himself said after his loss to Trump in 2016 that..." I would like to know what election occurred in 2016 in which Obama ran and lost to Trump. I mean, I can't really take any research seriously if somebody can't figure out major facts about a country. He lost all credibility after that chapter, and I found myself constantly wondering if he was just writing what he thought was true, or writing about actual facts that he researched.

SKIP THIS BOOK! It is very poorly written. I'm sure you can find something better to read about the war on drugs. I can't give a recommendation because I haven't read that book, but it's not this one. ( )

Pills, Powder, and Smoke by Antony Loewenstein is a well documented report on the damage done families, cities, and countries throughout the world. Each of the initial six chapters reports on past and more recent activities of the drug trade in various parts of the world. The remainder of the book describes some of the attempted solutions to this problem.
I had some difficulty getting started with this book. The extent of the cruelty, the needless killing and ultimate corruption of society did not make for easy reading. Facts are facts, though, and after several false starts I was able to focus on these facts with a view towards understanding a possible solution to the problems of illicit drugs. It is quite clear after reading this book that there is no quick solution to ending the drug trade. However, looking at different attempts by different governments does provide some realization of what might work best even though not perfectly. This book is not for everyone but certainly would be recommended for anyone working in or towards drug enforcement. ( )