NCJ Number
104607
Date Published
1986
Length
303 pages
Annotation
Using insider sources such as diplomatic cables and internal law enforcement memos, the author examines the consequences of the Reagan administration's intensified war on drugs.
Abstract
An examination of the production, distribution, and consumption of cocaine considers the adverse social effects and the futility of attempts to control coca and cocaine at the South American source. An assessment of the operations of international and Federal drug law enforcement operations suggests that the war on drugs has failed to suppress the available supply of cocaine. It also has inflicted major damage on the political and economic institutions of the United States and its allies by nurturing international trafficking and perpetuating the black market. The author suggests that the war on drugs has contributed to a variety of pathologies including assaults on justice and civil liberties, a growing big brotherism, tax evasion, disrespect for the law, corrosion of the work ethic, and the violence and corruption associated with the lucrative black market. International pathologies are seen to include narco-terrorism, corruption, and narco-destabilization. The author suggests that the war on drugs has failed because of an underlying conceptual error that can be traced to a preoccupation with the objective physical causes of cocaine dependency and deterministic explanation of human behavior. He urges that this approach be replaced by a network of controls that acknowledges the centrality of individual responsibility. 221 references and index. (Publisher abstract modified)