[PDF] Drug War Pathologies eBook

Author : Horace A. Bartilow
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 32,48 MB
Release : 2019
Category : Corporate state
ISBN : 9781469652573

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"In this book, Horace Bartilow develops a theory of embedded corporatism to explain the U.S. government's war on drugs. Stemming from President Richard Nixon's 1971 call for an international approach to this 'war, ' the U.S. drug enforcement policy has persisted to the present day, despite widespread criticism of its effectiveness and of its unequal effects on hundreds of millions of people across the Americas. While research has consistently emphasized the role of race in U.S. drug enforcement, Bartilow's analysis empirically highlights the class dimension of the drug war and the immense power that American corporations wield within the regime. Drawing on qualitative case study methods, declassified U.S. government documents, and advanced econometric estimators that analyze cross-national data, Bartilow systematically demonstrates how corporate power, as projected through corporate lobbies, corporate financing of federal elections, corporate funding of policy think tanks, and corporate interlocks with the federal government and the military, create the conditions in which the divergent interests of state and nonstate members of the regime converge in ways that promote capital accumulation. The subsequent human rights repression, illiberal democratic governments, repression of workers, and widening income inequality throughout the Americas, Bartilow argues, are the pathological policy outcomes of the embedded corporatist drug enforcement regime"--

Author : Horace A. Bartilow
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 23,55 MB
Release : 2019-07-30
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1469652560

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In this book, Horace Bartilow develops a theory of embedded corporatism to explain the U.S. government's war on drugs. Stemming from President Richard Nixon's 1971 call for an international approach to this "war," U.S. drug enforcement policy has persisted with few changes to the present day, despite widespread criticism of its effectiveness and of its unequal effects on hundreds of millions of people across the Americas. While researchers consistently emphasize the role of race in U.S. drug enforcement, Bartilow's empirical analysis highlights the class dimension of the drug war and the immense power that American corporations wield within the regime. Drawing on qualitative case study methods, declassified U.S. government documents, and advanced econometric estimators that analyze cross-national data, Bartilow demonstrates how corporate power is projected and embedded—in lobbying, financing of federal elections, funding of policy think tanks, and interlocks with the federal government and the military. Embedded corporatism, he explains, creates the conditions by which interests of state and nonstate members of the regime converge to promote capital accumulation. The subsequent human rights repression, illiberal democratic governments, antiworker practices, and widening income inequality throughout the Americas, Bartilow argues, are the pathological policy outcomes of embedded corporatism in drug enforcement.

Author : Eva Bertram
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 26,92 MB
Release : 1996-07-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780520918047

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Why have our drug wars failed and how might we turn things around? Ask the authors of this hardhitting exposè of U.S. efforts to fight drug trafficking and abuse. In a bold analysis of a century's worth of policy failure, Drug War Politics turns on its head many familiar bromides about drug politics. It demonstrates how, instead of learning from our failures, we duplicate and reinforce them in the same flawed policies. The authors examine the "politics of denial" that has led to this catastrophic predicament and propose a basis for a realistic and desperately needed solution. Domestic and foreign drug wars have consistently fallen short because they are based on a flawed model of force and punishment, the authors show. The failure of these misguided solutions has led to harsher get-tough policies, debilitating cycles of more force and punishment, and a drug problem that continues to escalate. On the foreign policy front, billions of dollars have been wasted, corruption has mushroomed, and human rights undermined in Latin America and across the globe. Yet cheap drugs still flow abundantly across our borders. At home, more money than ever is spent on law enforcement, and an unprecedented number of people—disproportionately minorities—are incarcerated. But drug abuse and addiction persist. The authors outline the political struggles that help create and sustain the current punitive approach. They probe the workings of Washington politics, demonstrating how presidential and congressional "out-toughing" tactics create a logic of escalation while the criticisms and alternatives of reformers are sidelined or silenced. Critical of both the punitive model and the legalization approach, Drug War Politics calls for a bold new public health approach, one that frames the drug problem as a public health—not a criminal—concern. The authors argue that only by situating drug issues in the context of our fundamental institutions—the family, neighborhoods, and schools—can we hope to provide viable treatment, prevention, and law enforcement. In its comprehensive investigation of our long, futile battle with drugs and its original argument for fundamental change, this book is essential for every concerned citizen.

Author : Paul Farmer
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 429 pages
File Size : 50,87 MB
Release : 2005
Category : Health & Fitness
ISBN : 0520243269

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"Pathologies of Power" uses harrowing stories of life and death to argue thatthe promotion of social and economic rights of the poor is the most importanthuman rights struggle of our times.

Author : Carl Boggs
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 14,43 MB
Release : 2015-12-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1317260937

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This book explores the increasingly broad terrain of drugs in American society with an emphasis on politics. It begins with the War on Drugs initiated by President Richard Nixon in the early 1970s and extends to the current day with the vast power of the pharmaceutical industry (Big Pharma), expansion of global criminal syndicates, militarization of the drug war, and struggles between states and federal government over the legalization of marijuana. From the beginning, the drug war produced increasing authoritarian tendencies in American politics, visible not only in swollen national bureaucracies and burgeoning police functions, but in the rise of the largest prison-industrial complex in the world, a surveillance state, and the weakening of personal privacy and freedoms. At the same time, the legal drug system with some of the most profitable business operations anywhere has expanded to create a huge medical edifice, affecting the delivery of health care, development of modern psychology, evolution of the treatment industry, and many other areas of contemporary life, including the world of sports and recreation. Although prohibitionism remains very much alive, targeting a wide range of illicit drugs, today it is the hundreds of widely-marketed chemical substances sold by Big Pharma that result in some of the most serious health problems affecting society. This book explores the long historical trajectory of both the War on Drugs and the growth of Big Pharma, focusing on social outcomes and political consequences in the US and beyond.

Author : Craig Reinarman
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 406 pages
File Size : 13,53 MB
Release : 1997-09
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0520202422

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A team of veteran drug researchers in medicine, law, and the social sciences provides the most comprehensive, penetrating, and original analysis of the crack cocaine problem in America to date. Helps readers understand why the United States has the most repressive, expensive, yet least effective drug policy in the Western world.

Author : Jess Ford
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
Page : 50 pages
File Size : 39,85 MB
Release : 1999-04
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780788143762

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Over the past 10 years, the U.S. has spent about $20 billion on international drug control and interdiction efforts to reduce the illegal drug supply. This report summarizes the findings on international drug control and interdiction efforts and provides overall observations on (1) the effectiveness of U.S. efforts to combat drug production and the movement of drugs into the U.S., (2) obstacles to implementation of U.S. drug control efforts, and (3) suggestions to improve the operational effectiveness of the U.S. international drug control efforts. Contains recommendations for the Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy. Charts and graphs.

Author : Steven Wisotsky
Publisher : Prometheus Books
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 27,56 MB
Release : 1990-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1615928359

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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.