Rating: 
Summary: Very good book on the madness of the drug war
Review: This is a very good book about the insanity of America's War on Drugs. The only thing that stopped me from giving it a five-star rating is how many other very good books there are on the same topic. Gray is a journalist, and his account is more journalism than strict social science. It is an easy and compelling read. Perhaps one day instead of seeing commercials about how buying drugs funds terrorism, our country will admit that paying taxes that support the Drug War, both domestically and internationally (e.g. giving millions to governments like the Taliban and Columbia), is a much bigger contributor to international terrorism and the destruction of America's families and cities than drugs themselves could ever be.
Rating:
Summary: A Quick and Brutal Indictment of the War on Drugs
Review: This is mostly a political and economic history of the war and drugs, and the trends that have made that war a continuous failure ever since its early days a century ago. Mike Gray's most compelling comparison is with the prohibition of alcohol back in 1920's. That unsuccessful movement led to a drastic increase in both liquor consumption and violent crime. With alcohol illegal its value skyrocketed, which in turn attracted violent criminals who kept the supply flowing. Gray amply proves that the lessons of that debacle were not learned, because the exact same thing is happening with the prohibition of drugs. The so-called drug war does not result in less drug use but more criminals - both the violent type who jump on the money train and the harmless casual users (and deserving medical users) who must be arrested even though they have committed a victimless "crime" in the privacy of their homes. The overwhelming evidence of this failure is there for everyone to see, but the problem is politicians who have turned this all into a moral crusade, while pursuing inept policies that merely feed the prison-industrial complex. Anyone who even tries to address problems with the drug war is said to be on the side of ghoulish junkies and stoners, and have to face a wave of self-righteous indignation from holier-than-thou politicians. Meanwhile the solution is not a black-and-white choice between total prohibition and total legalization. There can be compromises, such as government-controlled distribution like there is with hard liquor (which works by the way - one of the best quotes in this book is from a teenager who says that government-controlled alcohol is far harder to get in school than completely outlawed marijuana). The only problem with this book can be seen in the two parts of Gray's subtitle. The "How We Got Into This Mess" is described admirably, as described above. Unfortunately the book comes to an end too quickly to really get into the "How We Can Get Out" portion. Gray's solutions are only the "logical" outcome of the evidence of failure that he has already presented. His main recommendation is for healthy dialogue to take place using the clear evidence that the drug war is a failure. Sure that makes logical sense, but this is not a logical issue. Politicians preach morality as a cure for an invented crisis that they don't understand, than stand self-righteously above the fray while others bear the costs of the mess they've created. That's not logical. I agree that more dialogue is necessary but something more drastic has to happen before that process begins. I won't pretend to know what that should be, but it will certainly be more momentous than the alternatives Gray gives here.
Rating: 
Summary: Not crazy, we just have short memories
Review: Those who forget the mistakes of history are condemned to repeat them, and unfortunately the disaster of alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s occurred too long ago for most of us to remember it. Fortunately, Drug Crazy builds a bridge to that time, from whose lessons we can draw guidance today. That the Prohibition experiment (which was at least started and ended democratically, with Constitutional amendments) caused so much damage-especially crime, including the highest murder rate in US history-is a tragedy, but that we have not learned from that tragic experiment and are repeating the mistake on an even greater scale...that is indeed a crime. Drug Crazy goes on to trace the tragicomic escalation of the Drug War from its racist origins to its current heights of madness. This well-researched book is highly recommended for understanding how self-righteous and self-serving bureaucrats got us into the Drug War, and how we can get ourselves out. An appendix provides a long list of activist and related organizations, with web sites.
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