Ending the War on Drugs

Ending the War on Drugs PDF Author:
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0753552035
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
For the last 50 years, drug prohibition laws have put the market for illegal drugs into the hands of organised criminals. Now, it’s time to take control. Ending the failed war on drugs will reduce drug-related violence, tackle organised crime, end the needless criminalisation of millions, and will halt the drain on government funds and resources. In this book, global opinion-leaders on the frontline of the drug debate describe their experiences and perspectives on what needs to be done. Highlighting the pitfalls behind drug policy to-date and bringing to light new policies and approaches, which make a clear case for galvanizing governments to end the war on drugs – once and for all.

Ending the War on Drugs

Ending the War on Drugs PDF Author:
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0753552035
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book

Book Description
For the last 50 years, drug prohibition laws have put the market for illegal drugs into the hands of organised criminals. Now, it’s time to take control. Ending the failed war on drugs will reduce drug-related violence, tackle organised crime, end the needless criminalisation of millions, and will halt the drain on government funds and resources. In this book, global opinion-leaders on the frontline of the drug debate describe their experiences and perspectives on what needs to be done. Highlighting the pitfalls behind drug policy to-date and bringing to light new policies and approaches, which make a clear case for galvanizing governments to end the war on drugs – once and for all.

If the War on Drugs is Over ...Now What ?

If the War on Drugs is Over ...Now What ? PDF Author: Adam Blackwell
Publisher: FriesenPress
ISBN: 1460277821
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
It’s Time to Declare War on the War on Crime In 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy deemed the War on Drugs a failure. Initiated under Richard Nixon in 1971, the War on Drugs’ emphasis on harsh law enforcement and strong-arm police tactics spawned four decades of widespread violence, corruption, economic devastation, and overflowing prisons, with little to no effect on the flow of drugs around the world. While most people realize the War on Drugs was a failure, many of these same people continue to champion its “often forgotten cousin,” the War on Crime. Characterized by the same punitive philosophy and tactics, the War on Crime is a multi-billion dollar global enterprise that is achieving similarly dismal results. Despite the obvious inadequacy of this approach to domestic and international security, few politicians are willing to consider an alternative, for fear of being labeled “soft on crime.” Into this environment steps Ambassador Adam Blackwell, Secretary for Multidimensional Security at the Organization of American States. Drawing on his extensive experience working in some of the most violent countries in the world, Ambassador Blackwell argues that the solution to insecurity is not necessarily more security, more police, more troops, or harsher sentences. Instead, using case studies from Latin America and the Caribbean, he argues in favor of a multi-dimensional, data-driven, multi-stakeholder approach that focuses on solving systemic societal problems rather than punishing individual crimes. Far from a “soft on crime” method, in this book, Ambassador Blackwell contends that such an approach opens up fresh new ideas and methods for battling crime at home and abroad that, unlike the War on Crime, don’t exacerbate the very problems they are trying to solve.

Beyond the War on Drugs

Beyond the War on Drugs PDF Author: Steven Wisotsky
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1615928359
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
This provocative and controversial book rejects the popular pablum of more laws, more money, more enforcement personnel, and more jails as the road to victory in the "war on drugs." Author Steven Wisotsky masterfully documents the failure of the drug war and the erroneous premise central to its destructive and doomed strategy: the idea that drug taking controls human behavior; that drugs "cause" physical dependency. Americans must move beyond the war on drugs by repudiating their obsessive preoccupation with controlling or prohibiting drugs. Instead, we must replace this mindset with a new view that acknowledges individual freedom and the power of directing our choices toward responsible human behavior. According to Wisotsky, the idea of "waging war" on drugs is central to the problem rather than a fundamental part of any solution. He takes the Reagan-Bush-Bennett campaign to task for its failed efforts to cut the supply of drugs, reduce public demand, and enforce laws regarding the sale and distribution of controlled substances. Wisotsky contends that the war on drugs will remain inadequate so long as society continues to be seduced by the battle cries of its own stepped-up combat in which the "enemy" (drugs) must be eradicated at all cost. The rationale for doing battle has become so embedded in the public mind that we no longer recognize the need for a critical review of social policy, strategy, or the methods needed to achieve our desired goals. Have we simply created a new type of Prohibition, which is destined to fail? And if this is the case, then what does it say about our society? Have we lost the ability to reflect critically on our social motives and purposes, as well as our justification for the actions we take, simply because we've declared "war" on the "enemy" and we aren't going to stop the good fight until we've "won"? Beyond the War on Drugs offers hard-hitting arguments to support the growing public opinion that this war, as it is currently conceived, cannot be won and ought not to be fought. Wisotsky argues persuasively for a reassessment of this struggle. We must go beyond the war on drugs to develop a public policy that acknowledges human intelligence, free choice, and individual responsibility.

The War on Drugs

The War on Drugs PDF Author: David Farber
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479811424
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
A revealing look at the history and legacy of the "War on Drugs" Fifty years after President Richard Nixon declared a "War on Drugs," the United States government has spent over a trillion dollars fighting a losing battle. In recent years, about 1.5 million people have been arrested annually on drug charges—most of them involving cannabis—and nearly 500,000 Americans are currently incarcerated for drug offenses. Today, as a response to the dire human and financial costs, Americans are fast losing their faith that a War on Drugs is fair, moral, or effective. In a rare multi-faceted overview of the underground drug market, featuring historical and ethnographic accounts of illegal drug production, distribution, and sales, The War on Drugs: A History examines how drug war policies contributed to the making of the carceral state, racial injustice, regulatory disasters, and a massive underground economy. At the same time, the collection explores how aggressive anti-drug policies produced a “deviant” form of globalization that offered economically marginalized people an economic life-line as players in a remunerative transnational supply and distribution network of illicit drugs. While several essays demonstrate how government enforcement of drug laws disproportionately punished marginalized suppliers and users, other essays assess how anti-drug warriors denigrated science and medical expertise by encouraging moral panics that contributed to the blanket criminalization of certain drugs. By analyzing the key issues, debates, events, and actors surrounding the War on Drugs, this timely and impressive volume provides a deeper understanding of the role these policies have played in making our current political landscape and how we can find the way forward to a more just and humane drug policy regime.

The New Jim Crow

The New Jim Crow PDF Author: Michelle Alexander
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620971941
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
Named one of the most important nonfiction books of the 21st century by Entertainment Weekly‚ Slate‚ Chronicle of Higher Education‚ Literary Hub, Book Riot‚ and Zora A tenth-anniversary edition of the iconic bestseller—"one of the most influential books of the past 20 years," according to the Chronicle of Higher Education—with a new preface by the author "It is in no small part thanks to Alexander's account that civil rights organizations such as Black Lives Matter have focused so much of their energy on the criminal justice system." —Adam Shatz, London Review of Books Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander's unforgettable argument that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." As the Birmingham News proclaimed, it is "undoubtedly the most important book published in this century about the U.S." Now, ten years after it was first published, The New Press is proud to issue a tenth-anniversary edition with a new preface by Michelle Alexander that discusses the impact the book has had and the state of the criminal justice reform movement today.

Ending the War on Drugs

Ending the War on Drugs PDF Author: Dirk Chase Eldredge
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1882593383
Category : Drug control
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
"A conservative Republican examines how and why America is losing the war against illegal drugs-and presents a case for carefully controlled legalization."--

Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It

Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It PDF Author: James Gray
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 9781439907986
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Our drug prohibition policy is hopeless, just as Prohibition, our alcohol prohibition policy, was before it. Today there are more drugs in our communities and at lower prices and higher strengths than ever before. We have built large numbers of prisons, but they are overflowing with non-violent drug offenders. The huge profits made from drug sales are corrupting people and institutions here and abroad. And far from being protected by our drug prohibition policy, our children are being recruited by it to a lifestyle of drug use and drug selling. Judge Gray’s book drives a stake through the heart of the War on Drugs. After documenting the wide-ranging harms caused by this failed policy, Judge Gray also gives us hope. We have viable options. The author evaluates these options, ranging from education and drug treatment to different strategies for taking the profit out of drug-dealing. Many officials will not say publicly what they acknowledge privately about the failure of the War on Drugs. Politicians especially are afraid of not appearing "tough on drugs." But Judge Gray’s conclusions as a veteran trial judge and former federal prosecutor are reinforced by the testimonies of more than forty other judges nationwide.

If the War on Drugs is Over ...Now What ?

If the War on Drugs is Over ...Now What ? PDF Author: Adam Blackwell
Publisher: FriesenPress
ISBN: 1460277813
Category : Crime prevention
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
It's Time to Declare War on the War on Crime In 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy deemed the War on Drugs a failure. Initiated under Richard Nixon in 1971, the War on Drugs' emphasis on harsh law enforcement and strong-arm police tactics spawned four decades of widespread violence, corruption, economic devastation, and overflowing prisons, with little to no effect on the flow of drugs around the world. While most people realize the War on Drugs was a failure, many of these same people continue to champion its "often forgotten cousin," the War on Crime. Characterized by the same punitive philosophy and tactics, the War on Crime is a multi-billion dollar global enterprise that is achieving similarly dismal results. Despite the obvious inadequacy of this approach to domestic and international security, few politicians are willing to consider an alternative, for fear of being labeled "soft on crime." Into this environment steps Ambassador Adam Blackwell, Secretary for Multidimensional Security at the Organization of American States. Drawing on his extensive experience working in some of the most violent countries in the world, Ambassador Blackwell argues that the solution to insecurity is not necessarily more security, more police, more troops, or harsher sentences. Instead, using case studies from Latin America and the Caribbean, he argues in favor of a multi-dimensional, data-driven, multi-stakeholder approach that focuses on solving systemic societal problems rather than punishing individual crimes. Far from a "soft on crime" method, in this book, Ambassador Blackwell contends that such an approach opens up fresh new ideas and methods for battling crime at home and abroad that, unlike the War on Crime, don't exacerbate the very problems they are trying to solve....

Drug War Zone

Drug War Zone PDF Author: Howard Campbell
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292782799
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
A ground-level chronicle of the violent drug war in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico—with accounts from both traffickers and law enforcement, and “astute analysis” (The Americas). Thousands die in drug-related violence every year in Mexico. Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, adjacent to El Paso, Texas, has become the most violent city in the drug war. Much of the cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine consumed in the United States is imported across the Mexican border, making El Paso/Juárez one of the major drug-trafficking venues in the world. In this anthropological study of drug trafficking and anti-drug law enforcement efforts on the US–Mexico border, Howard Campbell uses an ethnographic perspective to chronicle the recent Mexican drug war, focusing especially on people and events in the El Paso/Juárez area. It is the first social science study of the violent drug war that is tearing Mexico apart. Based on deep access to the drug-smuggling world, this study presents the drug war through the words of direct participants. Half of the book consists of oral histories from drug traffickers, and the other half from law enforcement officials. There is much journalistic coverage of the drug war, but very seldom are the lived experiences of traffickers and “narcs” presented in such vivid detail. In addition to providing an up-close, personal view of this world, Campbell explains and analyzes the functioning of cartels, the corruption that facilitates trafficking, the strategies of smugglers and anti-narcotics officials, and the perilous culture of drug trafficking that Campbell refers to as the “Drug War Zone.” “This collection of oral histories of drug traffickers and counter-drug officials examines the border narco-world through the eyes of first-hand participants . . . An invaluable resource for anyone seeking a greater sociological understanding.” —Journal of Latin American Studies

Smoke and Mirrors

Smoke and Mirrors PDF Author: Dan Baum
Publisher: Little Brown
ISBN: 9780316084123
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Argues that despite increasing levels of government action, illicit drugs are more readily available than ever, and analyzes the failure of our drug policy