Author: Benjamin T. Smith
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324006560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 562
Book Description
A myth-busting, 100-year history of the Mexican drug trade that reveals how an industry founded by farmers and village healers became dominated by cartels and kingpins. The Mexican drug trade has inspired prejudiced narratives of a war between north and south, white and brown; between noble cops and vicious kingpins, corrupt politicians and powerful cartels. In this first comprehensive history of the trade, historian Benjamin T. Smith tells the real story of how and why this one-peaceful industry turned violent. He uncovers its origins and explains how this illicit business essentially built modern Mexico, affecting everything from agriculture to medicine to economics—and the country’s all-important relationship with the United States. Drawing on unprecedented archival research; leaked DEA, Mexican law enforcement, and cartel documents; and dozens of harrowing interviews, Smith tells a thrilling story brimming with vivid characters—from Ignacia “La Nacha” Jasso, “queen pin” of Ciudad Juárez, to Dr. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, the crusading physician who argued that marijuana was harmless and tried to decriminalize morphine, to Harry Anslinger, the Machiavellian founder of the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who drummed up racist drug panics to increase his budget. Smith also profiles everyday agricultural workers, whose stories reveal both the economic benefits and the human cost of the trade. The Dope contains many surprising conclusions about drug use and the failure of drug enforcement, all backed by new research and data. Smith explains the complicated dynamics that drive the current drug war violence, probes the U.S.-backed policies that have inflamed the carnage, and explores corruption on both sides of the border. A dark morality tale about the American hunger for intoxication and the necessities of human survival, The Dope is essential for understanding the violence in the drug war and how decades-old myths shape Mexico in the American imagination today.
The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade
Author: Benjamin T. Smith
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324006560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 562
Book Description
A myth-busting, 100-year history of the Mexican drug trade that reveals how an industry founded by farmers and village healers became dominated by cartels and kingpins. The Mexican drug trade has inspired prejudiced narratives of a war between north and south, white and brown; between noble cops and vicious kingpins, corrupt politicians and powerful cartels. In this first comprehensive history of the trade, historian Benjamin T. Smith tells the real story of how and why this one-peaceful industry turned violent. He uncovers its origins and explains how this illicit business essentially built modern Mexico, affecting everything from agriculture to medicine to economics—and the country’s all-important relationship with the United States. Drawing on unprecedented archival research; leaked DEA, Mexican law enforcement, and cartel documents; and dozens of harrowing interviews, Smith tells a thrilling story brimming with vivid characters—from Ignacia “La Nacha” Jasso, “queen pin” of Ciudad Juárez, to Dr. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, the crusading physician who argued that marijuana was harmless and tried to decriminalize morphine, to Harry Anslinger, the Machiavellian founder of the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who drummed up racist drug panics to increase his budget. Smith also profiles everyday agricultural workers, whose stories reveal both the economic benefits and the human cost of the trade. The Dope contains many surprising conclusions about drug use and the failure of drug enforcement, all backed by new research and data. Smith explains the complicated dynamics that drive the current drug war violence, probes the U.S.-backed policies that have inflamed the carnage, and explores corruption on both sides of the border. A dark morality tale about the American hunger for intoxication and the necessities of human survival, The Dope is essential for understanding the violence in the drug war and how decades-old myths shape Mexico in the American imagination today.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324006560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 562
Book Description
A myth-busting, 100-year history of the Mexican drug trade that reveals how an industry founded by farmers and village healers became dominated by cartels and kingpins. The Mexican drug trade has inspired prejudiced narratives of a war between north and south, white and brown; between noble cops and vicious kingpins, corrupt politicians and powerful cartels. In this first comprehensive history of the trade, historian Benjamin T. Smith tells the real story of how and why this one-peaceful industry turned violent. He uncovers its origins and explains how this illicit business essentially built modern Mexico, affecting everything from agriculture to medicine to economics—and the country’s all-important relationship with the United States. Drawing on unprecedented archival research; leaked DEA, Mexican law enforcement, and cartel documents; and dozens of harrowing interviews, Smith tells a thrilling story brimming with vivid characters—from Ignacia “La Nacha” Jasso, “queen pin” of Ciudad Juárez, to Dr. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, the crusading physician who argued that marijuana was harmless and tried to decriminalize morphine, to Harry Anslinger, the Machiavellian founder of the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who drummed up racist drug panics to increase his budget. Smith also profiles everyday agricultural workers, whose stories reveal both the economic benefits and the human cost of the trade. The Dope contains many surprising conclusions about drug use and the failure of drug enforcement, all backed by new research and data. Smith explains the complicated dynamics that drive the current drug war violence, probes the U.S.-backed policies that have inflamed the carnage, and explores corruption on both sides of the border. A dark morality tale about the American hunger for intoxication and the necessities of human survival, The Dope is essential for understanding the violence in the drug war and how decades-old myths shape Mexico in the American imagination today.
A Narco History
Author: Carmen Boullosa
Publisher: OR Books
ISBN: 9781944869120
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
The term "Mexican Drug War" misleads. It implies that the ongoing bloodbath, which has now killed well over 100,000 people, is an internal Mexican affair. But this diverts attention from the U.S. role in creating and sustaining the carnage. It's not just that Americans buy drugs from, and sell weapons to, Mexico's murderous cartels. It's that ever since the U.S. prohibited the use and sale of drugs in the early 1900s, it has pressured Mexico into acting as its border enforcer--with increasingly deadly consequences. Mexico was not a helpless victim. Powerful forces within the country profited hugely from supplying Americans with what their government forbade them. But the policies that spawned the drug war have proved disastrous for both countries. Written by two award-winning authors, one American and the other Mexican,A Narco History reviews the interlocking twentieth-century histories that produced this twenty-first century calamity, and proposes how to end it.
Publisher: OR Books
ISBN: 9781944869120
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
The term "Mexican Drug War" misleads. It implies that the ongoing bloodbath, which has now killed well over 100,000 people, is an internal Mexican affair. But this diverts attention from the U.S. role in creating and sustaining the carnage. It's not just that Americans buy drugs from, and sell weapons to, Mexico's murderous cartels. It's that ever since the U.S. prohibited the use and sale of drugs in the early 1900s, it has pressured Mexico into acting as its border enforcer--with increasingly deadly consequences. Mexico was not a helpless victim. Powerful forces within the country profited hugely from supplying Americans with what their government forbade them. But the policies that spawned the drug war have proved disastrous for both countries. Written by two award-winning authors, one American and the other Mexican,A Narco History reviews the interlocking twentieth-century histories that produced this twenty-first century calamity, and proposes how to end it.
Drug Trafficking in Mexico and the United States
Author: Gabriel Ferreyra
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498523625
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Book Description
Gabriel Ferreyra presents a comprehensive analysis of drug trafficking in Mexico and the United States by examining the roots, development, consolidation, and cultural ramifications of this phenomenon in the past century as well as its negative consequences in contemporary Mexico. Ferreyra discusses the most devastating effects correlated to drug trafficking such as high murder rates, gruesome violence, disappearances, and mass graves to emphasize how Mexican society bears the brunt of this phenomenon while the United States insists on the futility of drug prohibition. Unlike other publications, this book provides an interdisciplinary social science approach where drug trafficking is conceptualized as a multifaceted social, political, economic, and cultural problem, rather than just a criminal justice issue. Drug Trafficking in Mexico and the United States also revisits the war on drugs and provides an argument how drug control is the primary force behind drug trafficking. In that respect, there is an analysis on how the DEA has reinforced the war on drugs model and why it became a reactionary agency that opposes any comprehensive alternative to the American drug problem besides drug control. The author concludes with recommendations to implement forward-thinking measures such as decriminalization, reclassification, and legalization of drugs to effectively address the illicit drug trade.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498523625
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Book Description
Gabriel Ferreyra presents a comprehensive analysis of drug trafficking in Mexico and the United States by examining the roots, development, consolidation, and cultural ramifications of this phenomenon in the past century as well as its negative consequences in contemporary Mexico. Ferreyra discusses the most devastating effects correlated to drug trafficking such as high murder rates, gruesome violence, disappearances, and mass graves to emphasize how Mexican society bears the brunt of this phenomenon while the United States insists on the futility of drug prohibition. Unlike other publications, this book provides an interdisciplinary social science approach where drug trafficking is conceptualized as a multifaceted social, political, economic, and cultural problem, rather than just a criminal justice issue. Drug Trafficking in Mexico and the United States also revisits the war on drugs and provides an argument how drug control is the primary force behind drug trafficking. In that respect, there is an analysis on how the DEA has reinforced the war on drugs model and why it became a reactionary agency that opposes any comprehensive alternative to the American drug problem besides drug control. The author concludes with recommendations to implement forward-thinking measures such as decriminalization, reclassification, and legalization of drugs to effectively address the illicit drug trade.
El Sicario
Author: Sicario
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0434021458
Category : Assassins
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
true crime.
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0434021458
Category : Assassins
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
true crime.
Cartel Wives
Author: Mia Flores
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1538745267
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
An astonishing, revelatory, and redemptive memoir from two women who escaped the international drug trade, with never-before-revealed details about El Chapo, the Sinaloa Cartel, and the dangerous world of illicit drugs. Olivia and Mia Flores are married to the highest level drug traffickers ever to become US informants. Their husbands worked with--and then brought down--El Chapo, as well as dozens of high-level members of the Mexican cartels. They had everything money could buy: luxury cars, huge houses, and expensive jewelry--but they chose to give it all up when they cooperated with the US government. They knew that life was about more than wealth; it was about love, family, and doing what's right. Cartel Wives is a love story, a "Married to the Mob" story, an insider's look into the terrifying but high-flying empire of the new world of drugs, and, finally, the story of a major DEA and FBI operation.
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1538745267
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
An astonishing, revelatory, and redemptive memoir from two women who escaped the international drug trade, with never-before-revealed details about El Chapo, the Sinaloa Cartel, and the dangerous world of illicit drugs. Olivia and Mia Flores are married to the highest level drug traffickers ever to become US informants. Their husbands worked with--and then brought down--El Chapo, as well as dozens of high-level members of the Mexican cartels. They had everything money could buy: luxury cars, huge houses, and expensive jewelry--but they chose to give it all up when they cooperated with the US government. They knew that life was about more than wealth; it was about love, family, and doing what's right. Cartel Wives is a love story, a "Married to the Mob" story, an insider's look into the terrifying but high-flying empire of the new world of drugs, and, finally, the story of a major DEA and FBI operation.
Histories of Drug Trafficking in Twentieth-century Mexico
Author: Wil G. Pansters
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 082636358X
Category : Drug dealers
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
This work brings together a new generation of drug historians and new historical sources to uncover the history of the drug trade and its regulations. While the US and Mexican governments developed anti-drug discourses and policies, which criminalized both high-profile traffickers and small-time addicts, these authorities also employed the criminals and cash connected to the drug trade to pursue more pressing political concerns. The politics, socioeconomic relations, and criminal justice system of modern Mexico has been shaped by standing public and covert state policies as well as by the interaction of subnational trajectories of drug production and trafficking. The essays in this study explore this complicated narrative and provide insight into Mexico's history and the wider contemporary global drug trade.
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 082636358X
Category : Drug dealers
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
This work brings together a new generation of drug historians and new historical sources to uncover the history of the drug trade and its regulations. While the US and Mexican governments developed anti-drug discourses and policies, which criminalized both high-profile traffickers and small-time addicts, these authorities also employed the criminals and cash connected to the drug trade to pursue more pressing political concerns. The politics, socioeconomic relations, and criminal justice system of modern Mexico has been shaped by standing public and covert state policies as well as by the interaction of subnational trajectories of drug production and trafficking. The essays in this study explore this complicated narrative and provide insight into Mexico's history and the wider contemporary global drug trade.
Snow on the Atlantic
Author: Nacho Carretero
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 178699304X
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
Smuggling has been a way of life in Galicia for millennia. The Romans considered its windswept coast the edge of the world. To the Greeks it was from where Charon ferried souls to the Underworld. Since the Middle Ages, its shoreline has scuppered thousands of pirate ships. But the history of Cape Finisterre is no fiction and by the late twentieth century a new and exotic cargo flooded the cape’s ports and fishing villages. In Snow on the Atlantic, the book the Spanish national court tried to ban, intrepid investigative journalist Nacho Carretero tells the incredible story of how a sleepy, unassuming corner of Spain became the cocaine gateway into Europe, exposing a new generation of criminals, cartels and corrupt officials, more efficient and ruthless than any who came before.
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 178699304X
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
Smuggling has been a way of life in Galicia for millennia. The Romans considered its windswept coast the edge of the world. To the Greeks it was from where Charon ferried souls to the Underworld. Since the Middle Ages, its shoreline has scuppered thousands of pirate ships. But the history of Cape Finisterre is no fiction and by the late twentieth century a new and exotic cargo flooded the cape’s ports and fishing villages. In Snow on the Atlantic, the book the Spanish national court tried to ban, intrepid investigative journalist Nacho Carretero tells the incredible story of how a sleepy, unassuming corner of Spain became the cocaine gateway into Europe, exposing a new generation of criminals, cartels and corrupt officials, more efficient and ruthless than any who came before.
Drug Cartels Do Not Exist
Author: Oswaldo Zavala
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN: 082650468X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
Through political and cultural analysis of representations of the so-called war on drugs, Oswaldo Zavala makes the case that the very terms we use to describe drug traffickers are a constructed subterfuge for the real narcos: politicians, corporations, and the military. Though Donald Trump's incendiary comments and monstrous policies on the border revealed the character of a deeply depraved leader, state violence on both sides of the border is nothing new. Immigration has endured as a prevailing news topic, but it is a fixture of modern society in the neoliberal era; the future will be one of exile brought on by state violence and the plundering of our natural resources to sate capitalist greed. Yet the realities of violence in Mexico and along the border are obscured by the books, films, and TV series we consume. In truth, works like Sicario, The Queen of the South, and Narcos hide Mexico's political realities. Alongside these examples, Zavala discusses Charles Bowden, 2666 by Roberto Bolaño, and other important Latin American writers as examples of those who do capture the realities of the drug war. Translated into English by William Savinar, Drug Cartels Do Not Exist will be useful for journalists, political scientists, philosophers, and writers of any kind who wish to break down the constructed barriers—physical and mental—created by those in power around the reality of the Mexican drug trade.
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN: 082650468X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
Through political and cultural analysis of representations of the so-called war on drugs, Oswaldo Zavala makes the case that the very terms we use to describe drug traffickers are a constructed subterfuge for the real narcos: politicians, corporations, and the military. Though Donald Trump's incendiary comments and monstrous policies on the border revealed the character of a deeply depraved leader, state violence on both sides of the border is nothing new. Immigration has endured as a prevailing news topic, but it is a fixture of modern society in the neoliberal era; the future will be one of exile brought on by state violence and the plundering of our natural resources to sate capitalist greed. Yet the realities of violence in Mexico and along the border are obscured by the books, films, and TV series we consume. In truth, works like Sicario, The Queen of the South, and Narcos hide Mexico's political realities. Alongside these examples, Zavala discusses Charles Bowden, 2666 by Roberto Bolaño, and other important Latin American writers as examples of those who do capture the realities of the drug war. Translated into English by William Savinar, Drug Cartels Do Not Exist will be useful for journalists, political scientists, philosophers, and writers of any kind who wish to break down the constructed barriers—physical and mental—created by those in power around the reality of the Mexican drug trade.
Fear Is Just a Word
Author: Azam Ahmed
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 059344843X
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
A riveting true story of a mother who fought back against the drug cartels in Mexico, pursuing her own brand of justice to avenge the kidnapping and murder of her daughter—from a global investigative correspondent for The New York Times “Azam Ahmed has written a page-turning mystery but also a stunning, color-saturated portrait of the collapse of formal justice in one Mexican town.”—Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Directorate S A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New Yorker, The Economist, Chicago Public Library Fear Is Just a Word begins on an international bridge between Mexico and the United States, as fifty-six-year-old Miriam Rodríguez stalks one of the men she believes was involved in the murder of her daughter Karen. He is her target number eleven, a member of the drug cartel that has terrorized and controlled what was once Miriam’s quiet hometown of San Fernando, Mexico, almost one hundred miles from the U.S. border. Having dyed her hair red as a disguise, Miriam watches, waits, and then orchestrates the arrest of this man, exacting her own version of justice. Woven into this deeply researched, moving account is the story of how cartels built their power in Mexico, escalated the use of violence, and kidnapped and murdered tens of thousands. Karen was just one of the many people who disappeared, and Miriam, a brilliant, strategic, and fearless woman, begged for help from the authorities and paid ransom money she could not afford in hopes of saving her daughter. When that failed, she decided that “fear is just a word,” and began a crusade to track down Karen’s killers and to help other victimized families in their search for justice. What do people do when their country and the peaceful town where they have grown up become unrecognizable, suddenly places of violence and fear? Azam Ahmed takes us into the grieving of a country and a family to tell the mesmerizing story of a brave and brilliant woman determined to find out what happened to her daughter, and to see that the criminals who murdered her were punished. Fear Is Just a Word is an unforgettable and moving portrait of a woman, a town, and a country, and of what can happen when violent forces leave people to seek justice on their own.
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 059344843X
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
A riveting true story of a mother who fought back against the drug cartels in Mexico, pursuing her own brand of justice to avenge the kidnapping and murder of her daughter—from a global investigative correspondent for The New York Times “Azam Ahmed has written a page-turning mystery but also a stunning, color-saturated portrait of the collapse of formal justice in one Mexican town.”—Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Directorate S A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New Yorker, The Economist, Chicago Public Library Fear Is Just a Word begins on an international bridge between Mexico and the United States, as fifty-six-year-old Miriam Rodríguez stalks one of the men she believes was involved in the murder of her daughter Karen. He is her target number eleven, a member of the drug cartel that has terrorized and controlled what was once Miriam’s quiet hometown of San Fernando, Mexico, almost one hundred miles from the U.S. border. Having dyed her hair red as a disguise, Miriam watches, waits, and then orchestrates the arrest of this man, exacting her own version of justice. Woven into this deeply researched, moving account is the story of how cartels built their power in Mexico, escalated the use of violence, and kidnapped and murdered tens of thousands. Karen was just one of the many people who disappeared, and Miriam, a brilliant, strategic, and fearless woman, begged for help from the authorities and paid ransom money she could not afford in hopes of saving her daughter. When that failed, she decided that “fear is just a word,” and began a crusade to track down Karen’s killers and to help other victimized families in their search for justice. What do people do when their country and the peaceful town where they have grown up become unrecognizable, suddenly places of violence and fear? Azam Ahmed takes us into the grieving of a country and a family to tell the mesmerizing story of a brave and brilliant woman determined to find out what happened to her daughter, and to see that the criminals who murdered her were punished. Fear Is Just a Word is an unforgettable and moving portrait of a woman, a town, and a country, and of what can happen when violent forces leave people to seek justice on their own.
Mexico's Drug War and Criminal Networks
Author: Nilda Garcia
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000061590
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
Mexico's Drug War and Criminal Networks examines the effects of technology on three criminal organizations: the Sinaloa cartel, the Zetas, and the Caballeros Templarios. Using social network analysis, and analyzing the use of web platforms Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, Nilda M. Garcia provides fresh insights on the organizational network, the central nodes, and the channels through which information flows in these three criminal organizations. In doing so, she demonstrates that some drug cartels in Mexico have adopted the usage of social media into their strategies, often pursuing different tactics in the search for new ways to dominate. She finds that the strategic adaptation of social media platforms has different effects on criminal organization’s survivability. When used effectively, coupled with the adoption of decentralized structures, these platforms do increase a criminal organization’s survival capacity. Nonetheless, if used haphazardly, it can have the opposite effect. Drawing on the fields of criminology, social network analysis, international relations, and organizational theory and featuring a wealth of information about the drug cartels themselves, Mexico's Drug War and Criminal Networks will be a great source for all those interested in the presence, behavior, purposes, and strategies of drug cartels in their forays into social media platforms in Mexico and beyond.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000061590
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
Mexico's Drug War and Criminal Networks examines the effects of technology on three criminal organizations: the Sinaloa cartel, the Zetas, and the Caballeros Templarios. Using social network analysis, and analyzing the use of web platforms Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, Nilda M. Garcia provides fresh insights on the organizational network, the central nodes, and the channels through which information flows in these three criminal organizations. In doing so, she demonstrates that some drug cartels in Mexico have adopted the usage of social media into their strategies, often pursuing different tactics in the search for new ways to dominate. She finds that the strategic adaptation of social media platforms has different effects on criminal organization’s survivability. When used effectively, coupled with the adoption of decentralized structures, these platforms do increase a criminal organization’s survival capacity. Nonetheless, if used haphazardly, it can have the opposite effect. Drawing on the fields of criminology, social network analysis, international relations, and organizational theory and featuring a wealth of information about the drug cartels themselves, Mexico's Drug War and Criminal Networks will be a great source for all those interested in the presence, behavior, purposes, and strategies of drug cartels in their forays into social media platforms in Mexico and beyond.