Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America [Hardcover]

Joel J. Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2004

The war against drugs was supposed to make America better, right? It failed. Not only does the drug war fail to keep Americans from using drugs, but its crackdown tactics also produce bigger problems than it promises to solve. In this fearlessly audacious book, Joel Miller shows that drug prohibition creates tremendous amounts of crime and corruption, helps finance anti-American terrorists, makes a joke out of U.S. border security, chips away at constitutional liberties, militarizes law enforcement, and jails hundreds of thousands of Americans. And for what? A bigger, more intrusive government that cares less and less about individual rights. Told in a bold, uncompromising style, Miller's book reveals the true and terrible nature of the war on drugs and also, just as importantly, informs readers about what they can do to kick the drug-war habit.

"Miller nails it," says Larry Elder, host of ABC Radio's nationally syndicated Larry Elder Show and best-selling author. "He powerfully and persuasively articulates the folly, the harm and the unconstitutionality of our government's War against Drugs." And says Judge Andrew P. Napolitano of Fox News, "If you are interested in our freedoms or fearful of the government destroying human lives and wasting tax dollars on another American Prohibition, read this book and send a copy to every lawmaker and judge you know."

If you want to understand the drug problem in America, you first need to know how the government is making it worse. Bad Trip is the place to start.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Many see the war on drugs as one of the best examples of government policy run amok, which makes it a natural target for libertarian polemic. WorldNetDaily.com columnist Miller’s vigorous denunciation approaches the issue as a problem in economics. Given insatiable demand for drugs, he says, government attempts to strangle the supply simply raise the price and make trafficking enormously profitable. Criminalization therefore generates irresistible incentives to break the law, and is itself the cause of the crime and violence for which drugs are unfairly blamed. Junkies steal and hook to get money for a fix. Drug profits fuel murderous turf battles to control the black market, which is a cash cow for the gangs, guerilla armies and terrorists who dominate it. Interdiction efforts are more than matched by the ingenuity of traffickers, Miller says, and the police themselves are often corrupted, either by involvement in the trade itself or by the increasingly intrusive, violent and militarized methods they must use to suppress a "crime" in which all parties are willing participants. Miller’s well-researched, bitingly written account paints a panorama of irrationality and abuse: well-funded, innovative drug lords who regard seized shipments as a cost of doing business; broad drug-courier "profiling" criteria that could finger virtually anybody; forfeiture laws that allow police to seize property and savings with no pretense of due process; drug raids in which law-abiding citizens are gunned down in their homes. Miller’s libertarian leanings, supported by quotes from conservative icons like Adam Smith, Barry Goldwater and Ann Coulter, occasionally carry him past drug policy into jibes against the New Deal, Social Security and all things governmental. But when he sticks to drugs he delivers a formidable challenge to the reigning prohibitionist orthodoxy.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson (June 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785261478
• ISBN-13: 978-0785261476
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #715,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joel J. Miller is the author of Bad Trip, Size Matters, and The Revolutionary Paul Revere. His writing has been featured in The American Spectator, Reason, and elsewhere. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and two children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Governmental uselessness exposed (again), November 15, 2004

By 

Wheelchair Assassin (The Great Concavity) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America (Hardcover)

If there's one cliche that has been blatantly overused in the past few years, it's that our government is fighting a "war on drugs." Sure, the government is pretending to wage it, but we all know the war on drugs has been over for years, if it even ever existed in the first place. How exactly can we have a war on something so many people seem to want? Next thing you know, the government will start telling people they can't gamble, or pay for sex, or smoke in a privately-owned bar (whoops). Anyway, Joel Miller adds plenty of fuel to the raging debate over the drug war with Bad Trip. This short, direct, and intelligent volume should convince anyone who hasn't been indoctrinated up to their eyeballs in governmental propaganda that the war on drugs (like most wars) isn't worth fighting.

In one rather entertaining early segment, Miller takes the reader on a glimpse of the drug war's early days, illustrating the roots of the current mess in the first half of the 20th century. There's plenty of unintentional comedy to be found when Miller discusses some of the attitudes regarding drugs (including alcohol) that were commonly held back in the twenties and thirties. In one especially uproarious moment, in 1938 the Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics actually wrote, "an overdose of marijuana generates savage and sadistic traits likely to reach a climax in axe and ice-pick murders." And then of course, there was Reefer Madness, the classic 1936 movie where a little toking resulted in PERMANENT INSANITY. Now, having been around some pot smokers myself, I can say for sure that while marijuana use may result in giddiness, the telling of off-color jokes, and the consumption of junk food, it does not lead to violence or insanity. Sadly, though, the ridiculous beliefs outlined above continue to inform the drug laws even in these more "enlightened" times, and Miller does us all a favor by casting light upon them.

Of course, it's not drugs themselves that cause so much crime, it's the illegality of drugs. If people can't obtain drugs through legal means, they'll just get them elsewhere, very likely from violent gangs. Every halfway-informed person knows the same thing happened when alcohol was prohibited and gangsters took over the market, but apparently our politicians are slow learners (duh). Essentially, Miller writes, the drug war is bound to fail due in large part to simple economics. Drug dealers, he writes, are profiteers, while drug warriors are mere bureaucrats. Since the sale and use of drugs are prohibited, the government creates a black market in which any willing person with some brains can turn an easy profit. Therefore, the dealer trying to make a buck will always be ahead of the DEA agent who's getting paid anyway. As Miller details in the chapter on drug smuggling, the tighter the noose of prohibition gets, the more inventive dealers get in the quest for money.

Most tragically, though, since the drug trade is entirely voluntary and there are no victims to file complaints, governments have to resort to ever more proactive and draconian measures in order to catch dealers and users. Warrantless searches, no-knock military-style raids, blanket traffic stops, and utterly unjustified confiscations have made a mockery of everybody's Constitutional rights while doing little or nothing to stem the flow of drugs. Miller provides us with a laundry list of innocent people who have been robbed, terrorized, and even killed at the hands of overzealous (or outright corrupt) drug warriors. In many cases, governments have established a giant network of informants to fink on friends, customers, and even classmates, often going so far as to entrap people into breaking the law. Not to mention, the travesty of mandatory-sentencing laws has filled our jails with non-violent "criminals" who take up space that could be used for slightly more dangerous folks, like, say, muggers, burglars, and rapists.

Ultimately, Miller writes, the war on drugs amounts to nothing more than a war on freedom. There are plenty of other institutions in society, such as the family and the church, that can help prevent people from abusing drugs, but government prohibition merely creates a whole slew of new problems for all of us. Accepting the fact that other people are going to do things you don't like is a necessary part of living in a free society, one that mature people are going to have to get used to. After all, I don't think people should watch reality TV or listen to Celine Dion, but I manage to get over it. Miller finishes with a quote from Thomas Sowell that sums up the issue better than I ever could: "What do people get out of using drugs? I don't know...but there is all the difference in the world between deciding that you don't want to do something and trying to force other people to live your way." Amen.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very, Very Interesting, June 15, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America (Hardcover)

I had my doubts about this when I picked it up. However, I was blown away, by what Miller has written. Extremely well done research combined with an easy to read style were a bonus. He makes his points not on a social basis, but on an economic basis. My understanding is that his point is that it all goes back to the money part of it. The money is the true problem. Everyone should read this.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars it's like mainlining heroin, June 18, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America (Hardcover)

This book is written with such energy and near-paranoid conviction that I'm convinced the author must have been shooting up while writing it. And I mean that as a compliment. Really. Tackling a subject as taboo (and as neglected) as the drug war takes chutzpah, and, I must say, the author does it with the fire of a crack-crazed prophet.

What surprised me most about the book, though, is its sardonic tone. It's got a wry sense of humor that really compliments the seedy subject matter. A great mix of comedy, tragedy, and ouright absurdity. It's refreshing to read a topical book with strong writing as well as research.

I must admit, I approached this book with extreme caution. And though I'm not sure I'm ready to have drugs completely legalized (I'm definitely a child of the "Just Say No" generation), Miller's case against the drug war is powerful and hard to dispute.

Highly recommended. Surprisingly entertaining as well as informative. All around, a very good trip (and I'm not just saying that because I want to smoke dope without fear of repercussions).