Customer Reviews

Drug Politics: Dirty Money and Democracies (International and Security Affairs)

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4 star:		(1)
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This book is a near miss that still deserves to be read, though the author is repetitive and his reasoning is flawed. he describes the creeping dismantling of democracy in all its variants through the collusion, if not conspiracy, of politicans, drug traffickers and the banking industry. He cites interesting cases but strays off on tangents and reaches conclusions that could just as easily be reversed with a slightly different perspective. Clearly he has an agenda and refuses to seriously consider subtlety or nuance, dismissing such attempts as "counterculture" or misguided liberalism. Though there is no argument with regard to the very real dangers that the money of the drug business poses to national governments evrywhere, he decides to strike out at hippies, anti-war protestors, the CIA and George Soros, who he obviously equates to the AntiChrist.There remains to be written a book with this topic that is not judgemental and avoids aimless redundancies. Still, having said all this, Johnson did get me thinking about these issues, and even made me appreciate some of the arguments against decriminalization. Though I don't agree with much of his analysis, he poses interesting viewpoints that everyone should be aware of.

Professor Jordan's Drug Politics sheds critical light on one of the most persisting problems of the post-World War II period: How to properly tackle the problem of the illegal drug trade. What I found most valuable was Dr. Jordan's identification of the false underlying assumptions that have plagued America's anti-drug policy for decades, and have led many people, in frustration, to accept the even more deeply flawed arguments of those proposing the legalization of drugs. The vast majority of treatments of the drug plague fail to take into account the witting role of powerful "overworld" forces, including those in the banking and financial community, who engage in drug money laundering; politicians who become witting captives of the drug interests; and media and cultural industrialists who profiteer off of their own promotion of the drug culture. This book is a real thought provoker, and, what is best, the careful diagnosis of the false assumptions give one the idea that a viable approach to dealing with the deadly plague of illegal drugs may, at last, be possible. In addition to having the courage to names some of the names of the "overworld" figures promoting the drug epidemic for their own gains, the book provides invaluable historical background and insight. Yet, it is not an overly written academic treatment. It is one of those rare books that is too good to put down.

At last a comprehensive study of the "Drug Issue". This book not only deals with hard facts but provides a solid theoretical framework of analysis. The author provides a lot of information and references, plus a new interpretation on the nature of the Drug Problem seen in a historical perspective. If you want to know how Drugs, Governments, Businessmen, Financial Institutions, media and organized crime are related: read this book! A must for politicians and community leaders!

Mr. Jordan focuses on the process of "narcostatization," the corruption of a polictical system by the cooperation with and infiltration from large scale narcotics traffic. He discusses several theories of deomocracy and corruption before using specific examples to show how interference in democracies can occur (including one very surprising northern European "stable democracy"). I had read specific case examples such as McCoys "Politics of Heroin", and "White Out." I appreciated the theoretical framework offered by Jordan. All sides of the legalization debate-as well as anyone interested in being an informed citizen-should read this work.

This seems at first like a solid, academic, study. There's some interesting material on corruption in Mexico and Columbia, and on government use of drugs dating back to the Opium Wars. But by the time you get to chapter 10, on "Cultural Underpinnings of Modern Drug Consumption," it's hard not to realize that in fact the book puts forward a ... conspiracy theory: Freemasons, George Soros, Paul Allen, Satanic rock musicians, Playboy magazine, Aldous Huxley, George Soros again... -- they've all supposedly been involved in a vast conspiracy to promote drug use to undermine the state. ...