Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams A History of America's Romance With Illegal Drugs Book

Despite shelving it on my "psychedelics" shelf, this book is actually more about hard drugs. I am going to give this one an extra star, more than it possibly deserves, simply because of the great detail it provides regarding the history of the DEA and its predecessor, the FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics). Harry Anslinger must have a special shelf in Hell on which he is perched, beside J. Edgar Hoover and Dick Nixon. The absolute corruption attending Ansliger's tenure and legacy as head of FBN is astounding, and Ms. Jones documents it broadly and in detail: Agents who not only took bribes from informants and dealers but were engaged in the heroin trade themselves. Pure ignorance of the culpability of foreign governments of France and Vietnam, and collusion with America's most vaunted three-letter intelligence agency.
Much of this was kept from public scrutiny and more than likely it continued on after the establishment of the DEA and continues on even today. The sheer lack of true knowledge of addiction as a medical problem at least lives on in the high ranks of the DEA who are still in denial as to the medical efficacy of cannabis and are still equating it, like the buffoons they are, with heroin. The DEA are also responsible for the nation's current dilemma, of being basically the source of the entire "militarization of our cops" syndrome. Sure, 9-11 had about 11% to do with that but the DEA wears tall blame for the other 89%. Special police powers, ability to conduct wiretaps, no-knock raids, and the foreboding sense of a surveillance state overlooking all Americans' public and private behavior can ALL be lain at the foot of the DEA and the idiotic "war on drugs." The totalitarian police state that threatens our Republic can be directly traced to the "Just Say No" style of friendly fascism which Ms. Jonnes subscribes to. It is too bad Ms. Jonnes (at least at the time of having written this, twenty years ago, now) was still supremely uptight about ALL drugs. Her ignorance of some basic facts as to psychedelics (for example, citing the "peyote mushroom") is all too obvious. But that should take nothing away from the fact that this book is the first I have ever found which brings the truth to light about the lies and cover-ups and absolute fraud that were the real "accomplishments" of the Anslinger era. There should be a reasonable drug policy at the federal level in the USA - heaven knows, since we - as well as the rest of the world - are still recovering from the shade of Anslinger's deluded, devil-in-the-best-intentions wicked ghost.
While she is correct about hard drugs she still comes to a crashing thud when the subject of marijuana comes up. Indeed, this book primarily glosses over marijuana simply because the author lumps it in with the others, without real scrutiny- nor even an eighth of the detail she spends on heroin and cocaine. All too happy to read us out the horror stories of crack babies and thugs with guns, slingin' rocks, Ms. Jonnes tells us that "marijuana... could never garner a significant social movement." Well, it finally has, a majority of Americans would approve of both more valid medical research and application (the type that was always cracked down on by the FBN and continues to be cracked down on by the DEA) as well as legalizing its recreational use for responsible adults. It is precisely because the marijuana law is a bad law that there is as much disrespect out there for the many other laws which are, in fact, good ones. Any 12 year-old kid who's had a toke could tell you , it' plain true, they have lied to you. (As to how this is the most horrible thing you can do to yourself, etc).
How are you going to keep that kid from prematurely exercising his inborn curiosity? By teaching him there are times and places for such things, and he ought have patience to wait a few years and he'll be able to see those and find his way through them for himself. But the "significant social movement" Ms. Jonnes casually sloughed off because she most likely figured "stoners will always be too spaced out to make a significant cause out of it" has arrived. Books like this deserve to be what they are - instructive museum pieces for a mindset which rightly goes the way of the past century, and the page will be turned.