Abstract
In the past half decade, the United States has been in a transition period of reevaluating its position on illegal drug use, and therefore, the illegal drug trade. To understand possible avenues and policy solutions to the opioid crisis, drug violence, and mass incarceration, one must evaluate the path that led to their creation. In The War on Drugs in the Americas, White does that through a historical and geographical overview of the legal and illicit drug trade in the Western Hemisphere. An overarching theme of the text is the misplaced focus of the U.S. government and law enforcement on foreign drug networks instead of addressing the deadliest type of drug in the country—prescribed medication. His work illustrates the futility of the battle in the past century to suppress the use of drugs for pleasure while still allowing an enemy from within, pharmaceutical companies, to profit despite being responsible for more drug deaths than any illicit substances. Christopher M. White (PhD, Kansas), who is a Latin American history professor at Marshall University and has written three previous historical monographs, provides an evidenced, historical framework for the need of new drug policies.
The text consists of 173 pages containing an Introduction that gives a brief outline of the work and subsections describing each drug type, their effects, traditional practice and history, and their usage in the modern day; the book is then divided into three major parts, showing the timeline of the drug trade in the Americas. The headings of these three sections are titled as follows: The War on Drugs before 1981, The War on Drugs 1981–1995, and The War on Drugs 1995 to the Present. Each part is then further divided into geographical subsections of the United States, the Caribbean Basin, and South America. The War on Drugs 1995 to the Present contains an additional chapter titled “Debating the Way Forward,” which provides alternative policy implications. Each chapter describes the evolution of drug use and the supply market. Contained within these passages are persons of note, the viewpoints of citizenry and government entities, reactionary policies and laws, the violence and crime that accompanies illicit trade, and the economic motivations that underlie it all.
The War on Drugs Before 1981 encompasses a considerable period across three large geographical areas. Part 1 is an ideal source for a student or researcher who seeks to understand the foundations for what would become the illegal drug trade and the war on drugs. This section begins with U.S. history, starting with the first narcotic law created in 1914 and ending with President Nixon’s attempt at federal drug regulation. The subsequent chapters regarding the Caribbean Basin and South America describe pre- and post-colonization through the second half of the 20th century. Throughout this historical narrative, White gives a comprehensive but succinct background of the countries involved, how drugs and trade shaped their existence, and how these factors influenced their relationship with the United States in the drug war. Also, White devotes part of his account pointing out the significance of how most of today’s illegal drugs were once lawfully used in other capacities, such as hemp, and for medicinal purposes, with some created and manufactured by pharmaceutical companies that continue to legally manufacture them to this day.
Part 2, which encompasses the years from 1981 to 1995, delves into the machinations, which created the modern war on drugs. For a student or researcher, Part 2 is an excellent source for examining the peak of the war on drugs and the explosive growth of the drug trade. This section appropriately begins by describing the Reagan administration’s antidrug legislation, as this is where aggressive policing and enforcement gained momentum in the drive to curb the supply and demand for illicit substances. The text reveals that the Reagan administration failed to realize that most drug deaths were being caused by substances obtained legally. Because of this skewed perspective, White explains that the U.S. government shifted from a balanced approach of enforcement to a zero-tolerance position, instead focusing on the crack cocaine epidemic and soaring violent crime rates. This led to some unforeseen and possibly unheeded aftereffects such as the mass incarceration of minorities, the rise of methamphetamine in rural areas, and increased violence and terrorism of cocaine cartels due to the U.S. Extradition Treaty. In the subsequent foreign sections, White details how these policies shaped drug cartel tactics, spurned the rise to power of individuals such as “El Chapo” Guzman and Pablo Escobar, and how the governments and their citizens in the Caribbean Basin and South America had to change, and often suffer, through the turmoil created by these aggressive strategies.
The final section of the text informs the reader of the modern-day illicit drug trade and the current state of the countries involved. For researchers who are seeking indicators of future drug policy implications, this unit is extremely relevant. Where Parts 1 and 2 demonstrate how the war on drugs has been a failed endeavor, the last four chapters of Part 3 focus on new directions and where other nations and governments have found success. White explains the Push Down Pop Up theory and how this orientation indicates that continued war on drug enforcement will continue to fall short. Instead of proposing fixes to the war on drugs, White provides possible solutions, proposed and actual, such as harm reduction, treatment in lieu of prison, and drug legalization.
White’s text is successful in its intent. Although there were a few organizational issues and some nonrelevant tangents into pop culture, the work effectively captures the complexity of the war on drugs in the Western Hemisphere. More importantly, White describes how the war on drugs has produced a self-perpetuating cycle of crime and violence, while simultaneously ignoring the very real dangers of the legal drug trade. This text would be useful as a reference for students and researchers seeking a historical account of the period, for those who want to understand the multilevel interactions of the drug trade, or those who are pursuing support for drug policy transformations.