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The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade
The Mexican drug trade has inspired prejudiced narratives of a war between north and south, white and brown; between noble cops and vicious kingpins, corrupt politicians and powerful cartels. In this first comprehensive history of the trade, historian Benjamin T. Smith tells the real story of how and why this one-peaceful industry turned violent. He uncovers its origins and explains how this illicit business essentially built modern Mexico, affecting everything from agriculture to medicine to economics—and the country’s all-important relationship with the United States.
Drawing on unprecedented archival research; leaked DEA, Mexican law enforcement, and cartel documents; and dozens of harrowing interviews, Smith tells a thrilling story brimming with vivid characters—from Ignacia “La Nacha” Jasso, “queen pin” of Ciudad Juárez, to Dr. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, the crusading physician who argued that marijuana was harmless and tried to decriminalize morphine, to Harry Anslinger, the Machiavellian founder of the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who drummed up racist drug panics to increase his budget. Smith also profiles everyday agricultural workers, whose stories reveal both the economic benefits and the human cost of the trade.
The Dope contains many surprising conclusions about drug use and the failure of drug enforcement, all backed by new research and data. Smith explains the complicated dynamics that drive the current drug war violence, probes the U.S.-backed policies that have inflamed the carnage, and explores corruption on both sides of the border. A dark morality tale about the American hunger for intoxication and the necessities of human survival, The Dope is essential for understanding the violence in the drug war and how decades-old myths shape Mexico in the American imagination today.
Drawing on unprecedented archival research; leaked DEA, Mexican law enforcement, and cartel documents; and dozens of harrowing interviews, Smith tells a thrilling story brimming with vivid characters—from Ignacia “La Nacha” Jasso, “queen pin” of Ciudad Juárez, to Dr. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, the crusading physician who argued that marijuana was harmless and tried to decriminalize morphine, to Harry Anslinger, the Machiavellian founder of the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who drummed up racist drug panics to increase his budget. Smith also profiles everyday agricultural workers, whose stories reveal both the economic benefits and the human cost of the trade.
The Dope contains many surprising conclusions about drug use and the failure of drug enforcement, all backed by new research and data. Smith explains the complicated dynamics that drive the current drug war violence, probes the U.S.-backed policies that have inflamed the carnage, and explores corruption on both sides of the border. A dark morality tale about the American hunger for intoxication and the necessities of human survival, The Dope is essential for understanding the violence in the drug war and how decades-old myths shape Mexico in the American imagination today.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published June 3, 2021
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September 17, 2021The history of the Mexican drug trade is complex, the path to a restoration of order and calm, far from obvious. Professor Smith has written an excellent account of why this is so. To begin, the drug trade, which dates back more than a century, has involved multiple products, notably marijuana, opium – and its derivatives, morphine and heroin – and cocaine, and multiple constituencies, namely Chinese immigrants, Mexicans at the local, state and federal levels both in and out of government, the French, Colombians, and, of course, the Americans, both as consumers and enforcers. Interestingly, Professor Smith notes that while Mexico has been a significant producer of narcotics through the decades, Mexicans as a whole have not been large users. The principal users are American.
In his introduction, Professor Smith notes four findings from his meticulous study. First, the drug trade and its effects on the Mexican people fundamentally relate to economics. Second, members of the drug industry and various governing authorities have experienced an ever-changing relationship, where local protection rackets transitioned to the state then to the federal level and ultimately back to the industry itself. Third, the counternarcotic policies have largely been driven
Good stories are best with villains, of course, and there’s no shortage of them in this book; Professor Smith reveals one of the bureaucratic American variety in Harry Anslinger, at one time head of the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Given an enlightened attempt to offer drugs at low cost through Mexican government programs in 1940, Anslinger worked to shut down the entire effort in the name of the standard demonic drug myth, beginning a series of policies that continue to this day. His is apparently a name to be remembered in understanding how Mexico arrived at this sad situation.
Because the issues here are so thorny and the fix so daunting, if not impossible, no wonder there’s so much appeal for the tough on crime rhetoric of political simpletons. I’d like to place some blame on my favorite presidential simpleton, Ronald Reagan, however, he barely figures in this story, though his administration’s Central American drugs for arms initiative is discussed, largely as a possible factor in the death of a prominent US DEA agent, Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. The book ends with things appearing to get worse in Mexico, the murder rate today rising to some astonishing levels nationally. What does a modern lawless realm look like? Professor Smith offers a glimpse in his concluding remarks.
In his introduction, Professor Smith notes four findings from his meticulous study. First, the drug trade and its effects on the Mexican people fundamentally relate to economics. Second, members of the drug industry and various governing authorities have experienced an ever-changing relationship, where local protection rackets transitioned to the state then to the federal level and ultimately back to the industry itself. Third, the counternarcotic policies have largely been driven
by invented panics, the need for bureaucratic fundraising, and managerial scapegoating. They target whatever group is deemed easiest to cow, capture, and sell to the public as a victory. And they are supported by the relentless manipulation of facts and figures through administrative sleight of hand, the deliberate distortion of evidence, or straight out lying.Fourth, the connection between the trade and the use of force had two components, the appearance of new governing actors seeking to alter the status quo and the war on drugs itself. These observations along with Professor Smith’s documented history make for a distressing, revealing read.
Good stories are best with villains, of course, and there’s no shortage of them in this book; Professor Smith reveals one of the bureaucratic American variety in Harry Anslinger, at one time head of the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Given an enlightened attempt to offer drugs at low cost through Mexican government programs in 1940, Anslinger worked to shut down the entire effort in the name of the standard demonic drug myth, beginning a series of policies that continue to this day. His is apparently a name to be remembered in understanding how Mexico arrived at this sad situation.
Because the issues here are so thorny and the fix so daunting, if not impossible, no wonder there’s so much appeal for the tough on crime rhetoric of political simpletons. I’d like to place some blame on my favorite presidential simpleton, Ronald Reagan, however, he barely figures in this story, though his administration’s Central American drugs for arms initiative is discussed, largely as a possible factor in the death of a prominent US DEA agent, Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. The book ends with things appearing to get worse in Mexico, the murder rate today rising to some astonishing levels nationally. What does a modern lawless realm look like? Professor Smith offers a glimpse in his concluding remarks.
February 13, 2022
Another book that occasionally suffers from trying to tackle a huge, complicated story in a comprehensive way. Smith has a lot of fascinating insight and unbelievable stories packed into this book, and I do feel like I’m walking away with new insight into how we got to the current situation in “the drug war”, but I also really struggled at times to get through this. Stylistically, I found that the book suffers from starting most chapters with an in media res anecdote, then backtracking to explain how the situation evolved to that point. Those anecdotes are well chosen and compelling, but it can really grind the larger narrative to a halt, as you’ve just traced the evolution of one part of the history and then you’re thrown into an entirely new situation and have to get your bearings again about how this phase of the history aligns with what you just read. The book then reads in fits and starts, and ends up in an awkward middle ground between academia and narrative non-fiction. All that being said, there are a ton of interesting ideas here and it’s left me with a lot more to explore.
September 27, 2021
On the subject of Mexico’s narcos, The Dope really is the dope. Popular convention and recent TV series claim that Mexico’s drug trade got going in the 1980s, when ramped-up vigilance by the US Coast Guard forced Colombians to switch from the Caribbean to Mexico when shipping up their cocaine … Enter the Guadalajara Cartel. But Smith takes the story back a hundred years or more, for the United States has been sourcing its highs from Mexico since the Harrison Act of 1914 severely limited public access to narcotics.
Smith’s historical perspective clarifies the dynamics and economics of the trade. The book argues that, whatever one may hear about drug “pushers”, flows from Mexico have always been mostly demand-driven, for the USA has historically shown a massive hunger for narcotics by global standards. Smith shows that narco-economics, based on high US demand and low Mexican wages, have inevitably made Mexico the main supplier to its northern neighbour; Smith claims that in the recessionary 1980s a Mexican could earn as much growing a single marijuana plant as driving a taxi for a year.
More revealing still are Smith’s findings on how Mexico’s politicians and police have long run protection rackets to profit from the trafficking they supposedly worked to suppress. It’s the competition between local and federal authorities to control these rackets, coupled with pressure from the US government to produce TV-friendly drug busts, that have done most to drive the violence associated with the trade. In the early years, traffickers went about their business peacefully. The final chapters, on 1990 to the present, zip by too quickly; I’d have happily read another 100 pages of Smith’s engaging and often humorous prose.
Beyond its analytical savvy, what makes this book really swing is Smith’s eye for stories. One subject is Dr. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, who tried to kill Mexico City’s black market in the late 1930s through legalisation and official dispensaries, a programme that worked well for four months before the US government bullied Mexico into nixing it. Another is female border crime boss La Nacha, who controlled the Juárez market before converting to Christianity. A collection of sleazy state governors features Chihuahua’s Oscar Flores Sánchez, so eager to continue profiting from drugs in the 1970s that, as the nation’s attorney general, he had at least one noble crime fighter framed and shot dead.
Smith’s historical perspective clarifies the dynamics and economics of the trade. The book argues that, whatever one may hear about drug “pushers”, flows from Mexico have always been mostly demand-driven, for the USA has historically shown a massive hunger for narcotics by global standards. Smith shows that narco-economics, based on high US demand and low Mexican wages, have inevitably made Mexico the main supplier to its northern neighbour; Smith claims that in the recessionary 1980s a Mexican could earn as much growing a single marijuana plant as driving a taxi for a year.
More revealing still are Smith’s findings on how Mexico’s politicians and police have long run protection rackets to profit from the trafficking they supposedly worked to suppress. It’s the competition between local and federal authorities to control these rackets, coupled with pressure from the US government to produce TV-friendly drug busts, that have done most to drive the violence associated with the trade. In the early years, traffickers went about their business peacefully. The final chapters, on 1990 to the present, zip by too quickly; I’d have happily read another 100 pages of Smith’s engaging and often humorous prose.
Beyond its analytical savvy, what makes this book really swing is Smith’s eye for stories. One subject is Dr. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, who tried to kill Mexico City’s black market in the late 1930s through legalisation and official dispensaries, a programme that worked well for four months before the US government bullied Mexico into nixing it. Another is female border crime boss La Nacha, who controlled the Juárez market before converting to Christianity. A collection of sleazy state governors features Chihuahua’s Oscar Flores Sánchez, so eager to continue profiting from drugs in the 1970s that, as the nation’s attorney general, he had at least one noble crime fighter framed and shot dead.
October 18, 2022
Given the subject matter, this had the potential to be compelling and explosive, instead of what it is - an info-dump that is as dry as old, crumbly biscuits. It speaks of why journalists sometimes (but by no means always) write poor quality long form non-fiction.
April 29, 2022
A history of the Mexican drug trade is probably something more people should know about since it influences the world and the US more specifically far more than most want to think about and this does an excellent job of giving you this history. It is equal parts horror, history and politics and explains how Mexico became the kingpins of the world.
If you are a history buff you should probably give this one a go or something similar to get a greater understanding of the undercurrents of the main story that most of us read.
Highly Recommended.
If you are a history buff you should probably give this one a go or something similar to get a greater understanding of the undercurrents of the main story that most of us read.
Highly Recommended.
December 18, 2023
Un retrato de los factores que crearon a la delincuencia organizada mexicana. Más de 100 años de las razones, formas y estructuras del narcotráfico. Puedo decir que es de los mejores libros del tema que he leído.
October 29, 2023
Dense, but very well sourced and written. Not for the faint of heart. Be mentally prepared for a long and tumultuous ride through the last 100 years of Narcohistory.
October 31, 2021
A history of narcotics trafficking from Mexico. Begins with prohibition in the USA, where American law enforcement tries to stamp out illegal drugs and alcohol use. Works up to more violent forms after drug trade is forced out of Columbia. Good thorough account.
September 23, 2021
This is an impeccably researched and well-written saga. I got bogged down in the names and details at times, especially at the beginning of the journey in the early 1900s, but the paced picked up rapidly as the author pushed into the last 30 or so years. This book pairs very well with any of Don Winslow’s stellar novels about the cross-border drug trade, and will leave you both shaking your head in frustration and wincing at the staggering violence and suffering that has resulted from the War on Drugs. It shines a glaring spotlight on the failures of US intervention and begs for us to reckon with the fact that American Exceptionalism has contributed to immeasurable death and tragedy on both sides of the border.
January 10, 2024
Since the drug trade so dominates the Mexican economy, image, and ethos, a book of this sort is bound to crystallize one’s understanding of Mexico. And it does mine. The relationship between drug money, government corruption, and American demand is given detailed treatment here, filling in what has been happening in all the corners , dark and light, of Mexico since the Revolution ended in 1920.
First, in the 1890s, the Chinese arrived, making inroads into the agricultural cultivation of opium and its end products, heroin and morphine, and pioneering the export of drugs to the United States. During the revolution, marijuana use became a hip drug, but was soon made illegal. After the revolution, they rudely expelled the Chinese and took over the drug trade themselves.
By the 1930s, the government was so poor and the society so backward that mayors and even governors set up protection rackets, taking a cut of the profits in exchange for nonprosecution. Violence and intimidation became widespread as different municipalities attempted to gain control and increase their profits.
By 1946, the president took charge of the protection racket.
The prose here is clear and direct, and the facts are recounted in a readable storytelling style. It’s a great tale! I’m continually stunned by the depth of Smith’s research. He must have dug up every newspaper article about drugs in every newspaper in Mexico from 1895 to the present. In one case, he even searched for an unauthorized biography of a 1940s drug assassin, and in spite of the author being poisoned and nearly every copy of the book being purged from public libraries and even private ownership, Smith hunted down one copy in a private library and read it, then told us about this notorious assassin.
Author Smith annoyingly harps on the wrongheaded idea that outlawing drugs was a panacea that could have solved the problem, but was ultimately an opportunity lost. What Smith neglects to mention is how the Mexican government failed their people from 1820 onwards, enriching the aristocracy, church, and military and impoverishing the people, thereby setting the society up for the drug trade. If the people hadn’t been so dirt poor, they might have rejected the construction of a drug state and the criminality that accompanies it. But after the revolution, the people were so destitute that they desperately needed money for infrastructure, schools, teachers, and even just jobs and food. The corrupt upper classes set Mexico up for the dark dystopian future we have today, when large swaths of the country are too dangerous to even visit, according to the US State Department.
It is a sad story, but essential reading to open your eyes to the fix that Mexico is in today.
First, in the 1890s, the Chinese arrived, making inroads into the agricultural cultivation of opium and its end products, heroin and morphine, and pioneering the export of drugs to the United States. During the revolution, marijuana use became a hip drug, but was soon made illegal. After the revolution, they rudely expelled the Chinese and took over the drug trade themselves.
By the 1930s, the government was so poor and the society so backward that mayors and even governors set up protection rackets, taking a cut of the profits in exchange for nonprosecution. Violence and intimidation became widespread as different municipalities attempted to gain control and increase their profits.
By 1946, the president took charge of the protection racket.
The prose here is clear and direct, and the facts are recounted in a readable storytelling style. It’s a great tale! I’m continually stunned by the depth of Smith’s research. He must have dug up every newspaper article about drugs in every newspaper in Mexico from 1895 to the present. In one case, he even searched for an unauthorized biography of a 1940s drug assassin, and in spite of the author being poisoned and nearly every copy of the book being purged from public libraries and even private ownership, Smith hunted down one copy in a private library and read it, then told us about this notorious assassin.
Author Smith annoyingly harps on the wrongheaded idea that outlawing drugs was a panacea that could have solved the problem, but was ultimately an opportunity lost. What Smith neglects to mention is how the Mexican government failed their people from 1820 onwards, enriching the aristocracy, church, and military and impoverishing the people, thereby setting the society up for the drug trade. If the people hadn’t been so dirt poor, they might have rejected the construction of a drug state and the criminality that accompanies it. But after the revolution, the people were so destitute that they desperately needed money for infrastructure, schools, teachers, and even just jobs and food. The corrupt upper classes set Mexico up for the dark dystopian future we have today, when large swaths of the country are too dangerous to even visit, according to the US State Department.
It is a sad story, but essential reading to open your eyes to the fix that Mexico is in today.
December 31, 2022
'It was all about control not the truth'
By taking us through more than a century of Mexican drug trade iterations, the author goes to great length to show how both the US counter-narcotics policies (focussed on punishing supplier countries rather than treating its own demand) and the historical lack of state centralization have favoured the emergence of rackets and 'cuartels' throughout the country.
This book is the work of an historian rather than a novelist, and is a little long and unwieldy at times.
But while short on narrative it goes heavy on facts and descriptions - and I found it to be a great complement to 'Why nations fail' of Acemoglu as it points to two recurring Mexican problems ; (i) lack of state centralization and (ii) extractive institutions. It also helps to put into perspective some of Mexico's headlines (issues at Pemex and AMLO's stance on immigration and the usage of the army).
By taking us through more than a century of Mexican drug trade iterations, the author goes to great length to show how both the US counter-narcotics policies (focussed on punishing supplier countries rather than treating its own demand) and the historical lack of state centralization have favoured the emergence of rackets and 'cuartels' throughout the country.
This book is the work of an historian rather than a novelist, and is a little long and unwieldy at times.
But while short on narrative it goes heavy on facts and descriptions - and I found it to be a great complement to 'Why nations fail' of Acemoglu as it points to two recurring Mexican problems ; (i) lack of state centralization and (ii) extractive institutions. It also helps to put into perspective some of Mexico's headlines (issues at Pemex and AMLO's stance on immigration and the usage of the army).
September 29, 2024
A fantastic account of the evolution of Mexico and the Mexican drug trade over the last century.
Smith’s writing is candid and sprinkled with dry wit, and the book is packed with wild stories of Mexico’s narcos. His commentary on the drug trade and the utter failure of the war on drugs is insightful and impressive given the scope of the book.
It becomes obvious that, despite the narratives that are often portrayed, the problem is not fixed in addiction or corruption or violence as much as it is rooted in an economic system that has only been allowed to grow stronger as time has passed.
Smith’s writing is candid and sprinkled with dry wit, and the book is packed with wild stories of Mexico’s narcos. His commentary on the drug trade and the utter failure of the war on drugs is insightful and impressive given the scope of the book.
It becomes obvious that, despite the narratives that are often portrayed, the problem is not fixed in addiction or corruption or violence as much as it is rooted in an economic system that has only been allowed to grow stronger as time has passed.
January 25, 2022
This popular (not academic) history is intense. The writing is very accessible and it makes a rather complicated history more understandable. Recommended for everyone who's prior knowledge has been primarily gained from watching Narcos mini-series, anyone who appreciates large-scale history complications, and people looking for a better understanding of our neighbor to the south - and our own communities.
Did you know that very recently a vast majority of the heroin consumed in the U.S. was grown in Mexico? "Underground" agriculture dwarfs other revenue streams, but its the associated violence around control that is absolutely insane. This makes a very strong case that the "war on drugs" is a farce and helps explain why it is failing so badly.
Did you know that very recently a vast majority of the heroin consumed in the U.S. was grown in Mexico? "Underground" agriculture dwarfs other revenue streams, but its the associated violence around control that is absolutely insane. This makes a very strong case that the "war on drugs" is a farce and helps explain why it is failing so badly.
August 25, 2021
Excellent introduction and overview of the Mexican drug cartels
This is the first time I was able to understand the evolution and changes that drug trafficking in Mexico has undergone since the beginning. It is a must read for anybody interested in the topic. The only downside was that it felt a little rushed discussing the most recent time period.
This is the first time I was able to understand the evolution and changes that drug trafficking in Mexico has undergone since the beginning. It is a must read for anybody interested in the topic. The only downside was that it felt a little rushed discussing the most recent time period.
July 25, 2023
Smith is weakest in making arguments about the overall utility of drug control and enforcement. He will argue that controls are ineffective, and don't affect price or purity. Then in cases where this actually does happen he'll say the traffickers switch to new drugs. Finally, if even that has been achieved, he will pivot to the ultimate question of who drug controls actually serve and the ways in which Mexicans pay for American problems. That might be a good argument but it should have been the one he led with, instead of disproving some of his own claims.
That was the one big flaw of an excellent book which weaves together Mexican history, economics, and politics together to describe over a hundred years of drug trafficking. Smith busts different myths, asks us to be less credulous of received wisdom, and then, impressively, substantiates the reasons for skepticism in what is a genuinely murky world of subterfuge and official corruption. Importantly he also covers the American half of a cross-border enterprise and ultimately gives us lessons about the difficult tasks of state building and governance and their connection to crime. The overall impression left for Mexico's future in this area is not brimming with optimism, but one can be certain the nature of the trade will probably shift with any changes on the American side.
That was the one big flaw of an excellent book which weaves together Mexican history, economics, and politics together to describe over a hundred years of drug trafficking. Smith busts different myths, asks us to be less credulous of received wisdom, and then, impressively, substantiates the reasons for skepticism in what is a genuinely murky world of subterfuge and official corruption. Importantly he also covers the American half of a cross-border enterprise and ultimately gives us lessons about the difficult tasks of state building and governance and their connection to crime. The overall impression left for Mexico's future in this area is not brimming with optimism, but one can be certain the nature of the trade will probably shift with any changes on the American side.
February 16, 2025
5/5. This book is helping me think differently about militarized drug policing strategies, racism, institutional corruption, and the US-Mexico relationship. While products, drug violence, and protection rackets have shifted over time, the economic incentives of illegal drug trafficking have only strengthened. This reality, skillfully traced by the author, highlights the limits of state power and the consequences of its weaponization.
“Grand corruption,” beginning in 1970s w PJF. “These new racketeers no longer hailed from the region they controlled; they had no links with the communities they extorted. So they stole more, they distributed less, and they became increasingly casual about the use of violence” (8).
In 1990s, dawn of “state capture.” “Increased drug profits and declining state power have upended the old protection rackets. In many regions of Mexico, the traffickers still pay the authorities. But now the traffickers are in charge; they control the protection rackets and decide the rules of the game” (8-9).
Nowadays there are plenty of other underlying causes for Mexico’s spiraling murder rate—the explosion of other forms of crime, the expansion of Mexico’s own retail drug market, the ongoing smuggling of guns from the United States, and the almost complete collapse of the country’s judiciary. Yet these two causes, which have marked the history of the Mexican drug trade, remain important today. Struggles over the control of drug protection rackets still generate conflicts among diverse state institutions and their allied traffickers. Aggressive antidrug policing still produces state-backed murders and divides drug-trafficking networks against one another. Violence, then, is not so much in the DNA of trading in narcotics as in the DNA of prohibiting the trade (12).
Such cases demonstrated the arbitrary lines between formal medicine and drug dealing. Medicine was just filling out the right forms, going through the right channels, and prescribing relief to the rich. Drug dealing was giving out a slightly weaker version of the product but to a poorer clientele and while cutting a couple of bureaucratic corners. Though the crackdown on narcotics was—even in its earliest days—portrayed as a struggle between good and evil, the difference between medicine and dealing was not really one of ethics or morality, but rather of attitudes to class and the state (39-40).
“And the Mexican authorities always preferred to take down a foreign operation rather than a domestic one. Doing so was good politics. It made the drug trade look like a pernicious import rather than something firmly entrenched (85).
Salazar; “Marxist theory of marijuana.” “Reefer madness” as a social construct, like private property, to keep proletariat down (101). Believed that solution to systemic drug crises was not judicial or medical, but economic.
He achieved state-run morphine distribution clinics, but “World War II and then the Cold War forced Mexico into closer and closer alignment with the United States. Drug policy followed in lock step” (110).
“Cacique:” “any rural boss whose charisma, wealth, and contacts made him the de facto leader of a community” (120).
Alemán — rebranded governing rev party to PRI. “the two C’s — corruption and coercion” designed his rule (149).
Secret police headed by Carlos Serrano: Ministry of Federal Security (DFS), “the coercive branch of the new state” and “one of Latin America’s first Cold War police forces.” Targeted leftists, and used to facilitate elite drug trade (152).
“Great Campaign” => “It was drug campaign as military invasion” (159).
“Public humiliation [by media following Cadillac Bust] pushed Mexico to stifle federal-level corruption and clamp down on the narcotics business.” Also let to winding down of DFS involvement in drug trade, at least temporarily. Counterrevolution started by Alemán needed US support; compromise was ceding control of narcotics policy abroad (160-162).
“Drug panics, however, had little to do with reality. In the United States — as in Mexico — panics had much more to do with how perceive the racial and social profile of the trade. In this case, Americans feared black and Mexican-American dealers hawking narcotics to their white, suburban kids” (164).
In Mexico, “[p]ersecution pushed what had started as a relatively open commerce toward organized crime” (165).
Narcoaristocracy (172) => alliances bonded by marriage
Narcoliteratura (173) => genre of fiction in Mexico following drug trafficking
Yet the masculine world of the drug business can be overplayed. It attracted most of the headlines and fed into both U.S. and Mexican visions of the narcotics business as inherently violent (180).
“Yet, in reality, such collusion was not simply a matter of money or corruption. It was embedded in the process of drug war policing. To get arrests, you needed informants. To get informants you essentially had to back one group against another. And when rivalries didn’t exist, you needed to create them. Divide and conquer. What looked like intercostal struggles were often just extensions of drug policing. It was the drug war’s dirty little secret. It was covered up by the traffickers, who didn’t want to reveal themselves as snitches. And it was covered up by the authorities, who didn’t want to unmask themselves as the authors of so much of the resulting bloodshed” (392-393).
After 2012… despite government tactics, the flow of drugs northward continued unabated. Incentives remained high; the demand for opiates in particular boomed. And traffickers adapted to the shifting U.S. market, moving smoothly from marijuana to heroin to the synthetic opiate fentanyl. For American addicts, it was as if the drug war never happened. Now it is cheaper and easier to get high than ever before (397).
“Grand corruption,” beginning in 1970s w PJF. “These new racketeers no longer hailed from the region they controlled; they had no links with the communities they extorted. So they stole more, they distributed less, and they became increasingly casual about the use of violence” (8).
In 1990s, dawn of “state capture.” “Increased drug profits and declining state power have upended the old protection rackets. In many regions of Mexico, the traffickers still pay the authorities. But now the traffickers are in charge; they control the protection rackets and decide the rules of the game” (8-9).
Nowadays there are plenty of other underlying causes for Mexico’s spiraling murder rate—the explosion of other forms of crime, the expansion of Mexico’s own retail drug market, the ongoing smuggling of guns from the United States, and the almost complete collapse of the country’s judiciary. Yet these two causes, which have marked the history of the Mexican drug trade, remain important today. Struggles over the control of drug protection rackets still generate conflicts among diverse state institutions and their allied traffickers. Aggressive antidrug policing still produces state-backed murders and divides drug-trafficking networks against one another. Violence, then, is not so much in the DNA of trading in narcotics as in the DNA of prohibiting the trade (12).
Such cases demonstrated the arbitrary lines between formal medicine and drug dealing. Medicine was just filling out the right forms, going through the right channels, and prescribing relief to the rich. Drug dealing was giving out a slightly weaker version of the product but to a poorer clientele and while cutting a couple of bureaucratic corners. Though the crackdown on narcotics was—even in its earliest days—portrayed as a struggle between good and evil, the difference between medicine and dealing was not really one of ethics or morality, but rather of attitudes to class and the state (39-40).
“And the Mexican authorities always preferred to take down a foreign operation rather than a domestic one. Doing so was good politics. It made the drug trade look like a pernicious import rather than something firmly entrenched (85).
Salazar; “Marxist theory of marijuana.” “Reefer madness” as a social construct, like private property, to keep proletariat down (101). Believed that solution to systemic drug crises was not judicial or medical, but economic.
He achieved state-run morphine distribution clinics, but “World War II and then the Cold War forced Mexico into closer and closer alignment with the United States. Drug policy followed in lock step” (110).
“Cacique:” “any rural boss whose charisma, wealth, and contacts made him the de facto leader of a community” (120).
Alemán — rebranded governing rev party to PRI. “the two C’s — corruption and coercion” designed his rule (149).
Secret police headed by Carlos Serrano: Ministry of Federal Security (DFS), “the coercive branch of the new state” and “one of Latin America’s first Cold War police forces.” Targeted leftists, and used to facilitate elite drug trade (152).
“Great Campaign” => “It was drug campaign as military invasion” (159).
“Public humiliation [by media following Cadillac Bust] pushed Mexico to stifle federal-level corruption and clamp down on the narcotics business.” Also let to winding down of DFS involvement in drug trade, at least temporarily. Counterrevolution started by Alemán needed US support; compromise was ceding control of narcotics policy abroad (160-162).
“Drug panics, however, had little to do with reality. In the United States — as in Mexico — panics had much more to do with how perceive the racial and social profile of the trade. In this case, Americans feared black and Mexican-American dealers hawking narcotics to their white, suburban kids” (164).
In Mexico, “[p]ersecution pushed what had started as a relatively open commerce toward organized crime” (165).
Narcoaristocracy (172) => alliances bonded by marriage
Narcoliteratura (173) => genre of fiction in Mexico following drug trafficking
Yet the masculine world of the drug business can be overplayed. It attracted most of the headlines and fed into both U.S. and Mexican visions of the narcotics business as inherently violent (180).
“Yet, in reality, such collusion was not simply a matter of money or corruption. It was embedded in the process of drug war policing. To get arrests, you needed informants. To get informants you essentially had to back one group against another. And when rivalries didn’t exist, you needed to create them. Divide and conquer. What looked like intercostal struggles were often just extensions of drug policing. It was the drug war’s dirty little secret. It was covered up by the traffickers, who didn’t want to reveal themselves as snitches. And it was covered up by the authorities, who didn’t want to unmask themselves as the authors of so much of the resulting bloodshed” (392-393).
After 2012… despite government tactics, the flow of drugs northward continued unabated. Incentives remained high; the demand for opiates in particular boomed. And traffickers adapted to the shifting U.S. market, moving smoothly from marijuana to heroin to the synthetic opiate fentanyl. For American addicts, it was as if the drug war never happened. Now it is cheaper and easier to get high than ever before (397).
August 23, 2021
I guess we can all be a little proud of ourselves as Americans, knowing that our unending need to drug ourselves into oblivion (and our desire to make ungodly amounts of money selling automatic weapons) has basically destroyed an entire country from within. Good lord.
September 3, 2022
"The Dope" is clearly in the top 20 books I've ever read. And this is the best book I've read on the Mexican drug trade from its inception to the present day. Smith makes a convincing case that you can't understand the growing violence of the 21st century without starting over a hundred years earlier.
The author has a biting writing style and doesn't hold his punches, "Unlike dying in abject poverty, [peasants growing drug crops] attracted the attention of the Mexican and U.S. governments." Well done, sir.
The protection rackets have changed back and forth from local to state to federal agencies in Mexico (with the assistance of the U.S. government), and back again. But in the last 25 years the cartels (a weak, but convenient, label) wrested control of the rackets from the governments, and that's when the real bloodbath started. But the author makes a watertight case that much of the violence was learned from the Mexican government and the DEA decades earlier. Most in these government agencies are on the take: both in Mexico and in the U.S.
"Divide and conquer. What looked like intercartel struggles were often just extensions of drug policing. It was the drug war's dirty little secret. It was covered up by the traffickers, who didn't want to reveal themselves as snitches. And it was covered up by the authorities, who didn't want to unmask themselves as the authors of so much of the resulting bloodshed."
So in America you can get sh%#-faced drunk on alcohol, but cannot use these substances. What a joke. It's all about money and they're all on the take. I don't believe for a moment that our local and national law enforcement agencies want to shut down the drug trade in America. Pay day is coming, one way or another.
The author has a biting writing style and doesn't hold his punches, "Unlike dying in abject poverty, [peasants growing drug crops] attracted the attention of the Mexican and U.S. governments." Well done, sir.
The protection rackets have changed back and forth from local to state to federal agencies in Mexico (with the assistance of the U.S. government), and back again. But in the last 25 years the cartels (a weak, but convenient, label) wrested control of the rackets from the governments, and that's when the real bloodbath started. But the author makes a watertight case that much of the violence was learned from the Mexican government and the DEA decades earlier. Most in these government agencies are on the take: both in Mexico and in the U.S.
"Divide and conquer. What looked like intercartel struggles were often just extensions of drug policing. It was the drug war's dirty little secret. It was covered up by the traffickers, who didn't want to reveal themselves as snitches. And it was covered up by the authorities, who didn't want to unmask themselves as the authors of so much of the resulting bloodshed."
So in America you can get sh%#-faced drunk on alcohol, but cannot use these substances. What a joke. It's all about money and they're all on the take. I don't believe for a moment that our local and national law enforcement agencies want to shut down the drug trade in America. Pay day is coming, one way or another.
November 26, 2023
I found this book as a reference in one of Sam Quinonenes' works on the American opioid epidemic. I'm glad I did. It is comprehensive without being dry, and interesting without being prurient. Beginning at the dawn of the previous century, Smith tracks the rise/influence of Chinese opium, followed by marijuana, cocaine, meth, and heroin. Along the way, he brings in politics, corruption, economics, culture, policing, crime, and specific underworld figures of earlier eras. Toward the end, the crime has become war and the drug trafficking has become protection rackets all over the country. If I were to describe this book with an illustration, it is like watching a runaway train slowly gathering speed as it plunges downhill. The horror of the reader rises as the book progresses.
My biggest quarrel with Smith's work is not the work; it is the allusions to failure in all aspects of drug prohibition and enforcement. While Smith does not say it explicitly, indeed doesn't offer any prescriptions at all, by inference it seems he things the only acceptable response is legalization combined with mass treatment. I think that is a terrible idea. In fact, I was struck by the fact that whatever was tried, no matter the decade or ruler or approach, nothing worked. And it won't.
...because Jesus is the only answer to the rotten hearts of men. But that is a whole 'nuther discussion.
Well-researched and necessary work, invaluable for those who want a truly informed understanding of why our country's urban areas and rural areas are sliding into death and despair.
My biggest quarrel with Smith's work is not the work; it is the allusions to failure in all aspects of drug prohibition and enforcement. While Smith does not say it explicitly, indeed doesn't offer any prescriptions at all, by inference it seems he things the only acceptable response is legalization combined with mass treatment. I think that is a terrible idea. In fact, I was struck by the fact that whatever was tried, no matter the decade or ruler or approach, nothing worked. And it won't.
...because Jesus is the only answer to the rotten hearts of men. But that is a whole 'nuther discussion.
Well-researched and necessary work, invaluable for those who want a truly informed understanding of why our country's urban areas and rural areas are sliding into death and despair.
November 26, 2025
To start I enjoyed this one a lot, I felt that it was a good intro to the history that you can use as a sort of bounce off point to start researching either specific names/events that were mentioned in the book. Here’s what I thought:
Pros:
- The book did its best at combining the known history while also knowing that a lot of the trade, especially in the early years is quite difficult to pin down. But I felt it did really well in showing off the history that it could.
- I mentioned this at first but the book spans a wide range of years and history and it covered so many individuals, I find this book as a great introductory piece to this niche of history.
Cons:
- It suffers from the simple fact that it tries to encapsulate so many years of history in about 400 pages without sounding a bit monotonous. There’s a very common sense of, “oh this person arises, they died, then here is that example again in another state.” Not necessarily really bad because it is history but just can be a bit monotonous, however granted it was not a long read so not bad.
- I felt the part about the modern era (1990-2020) was incredibly short. There’s so much they could’ve discussed because it is one of the more well documented eras as compared to earlier parts, however i felt the ending was just super rushed and glossed over a lot of modern day history that should’ve/could’ve been discussed
Overall solid read, didn’t truly blow me away but I enjoyed it 3.5 stars
Pros:
- The book did its best at combining the known history while also knowing that a lot of the trade, especially in the early years is quite difficult to pin down. But I felt it did really well in showing off the history that it could.
- I mentioned this at first but the book spans a wide range of years and history and it covered so many individuals, I find this book as a great introductory piece to this niche of history.
Cons:
- It suffers from the simple fact that it tries to encapsulate so many years of history in about 400 pages without sounding a bit monotonous. There’s a very common sense of, “oh this person arises, they died, then here is that example again in another state.” Not necessarily really bad because it is history but just can be a bit monotonous, however granted it was not a long read so not bad.
- I felt the part about the modern era (1990-2020) was incredibly short. There’s so much they could’ve discussed because it is one of the more well documented eras as compared to earlier parts, however i felt the ending was just super rushed and glossed over a lot of modern day history that should’ve/could’ve been discussed
Overall solid read, didn’t truly blow me away but I enjoyed it 3.5 stars
November 8, 2021
I felt compelled to give this four stars for the incredible research and scholarship involved, though there were times I had to work to stay focused.
I completely agree with Mr. Smith that the origin of drug problem is the demand in the United States (the author says little about the demand from Europe which I gather is comparable to that in this country).
I also concur that interdiction, i.e. trying to stop supply, beyond being ineffective, is horribly destructive both in Mexico and in the US, exacerbating violence that is already of Olympian proportions. Most people involved believe that those efforts stop at the very most 10% of the drugs, and there are many who put the figure at 2-5%.
I am sympathetic to the idea of decrimialization.
That said, I also find in Mr. Smith's account the typical Brit progressive's fundamental belief that all evil in this world emanates from the flagitiously corrupt United States of America. All suffering and obstacles on the way to a socialist paradise originates in its fetid corruption. In this, he has much in common with American progressives ("Irredeemably racist"; "heartlessly lacking in compassion", "founded on hypocrisies", etc. etc.
The conclusions of anyone giving kudos to Andrés Manuel López Obrador (who is clearly an aspiring dictator) I have to take with a grain of salt.
I completely agree with Mr. Smith that the origin of drug problem is the demand in the United States (the author says little about the demand from Europe which I gather is comparable to that in this country).
I also concur that interdiction, i.e. trying to stop supply, beyond being ineffective, is horribly destructive both in Mexico and in the US, exacerbating violence that is already of Olympian proportions. Most people involved believe that those efforts stop at the very most 10% of the drugs, and there are many who put the figure at 2-5%.
I am sympathetic to the idea of decrimialization.
That said, I also find in Mr. Smith's account the typical Brit progressive's fundamental belief that all evil in this world emanates from the flagitiously corrupt United States of America. All suffering and obstacles on the way to a socialist paradise originates in its fetid corruption. In this, he has much in common with American progressives ("Irredeemably racist"; "heartlessly lacking in compassion", "founded on hypocrisies", etc. etc.
The conclusions of anyone giving kudos to Andrés Manuel López Obrador (who is clearly an aspiring dictator) I have to take with a grain of salt.
Want to read
August 28, 2021NYT Review: The Phony War on Drugs
"mythmaking and storytelling have served to “demonize the drug traffickers and cement the narrative of the drug war as a struggle between good and evil.” Despite the inescapable truth that the illicit trade feeds America’s unending demand for narcotics, this portrayal of Mexico has tilted American political realities. “Drug war myths provide the essential background for the upsurge in U.S. nativism,” Smith writes, and with it “the expansion of a massive deportation industry [...]
But as profits increased, competition for protection schemes intensified and eventually engulfed the federal government. By early 1997, even the Mexican Army general in charge of the nation’s war on drugs was taking payments to protect the cartels [...] The cartels spread their infection to car theft rings, kidnappers and illegal loggers, and then demanded protection payments from legitimate businesses. They even stalked Mexican elective politics. Just this past June, 35 candidates for local office were killed as cartels ensured that their own candidates won."
Sure to be a worthwhile read
"mythmaking and storytelling have served to “demonize the drug traffickers and cement the narrative of the drug war as a struggle between good and evil.” Despite the inescapable truth that the illicit trade feeds America’s unending demand for narcotics, this portrayal of Mexico has tilted American political realities. “Drug war myths provide the essential background for the upsurge in U.S. nativism,” Smith writes, and with it “the expansion of a massive deportation industry [...]
But as profits increased, competition for protection schemes intensified and eventually engulfed the federal government. By early 1997, even the Mexican Army general in charge of the nation’s war on drugs was taking payments to protect the cartels [...] The cartels spread their infection to car theft rings, kidnappers and illegal loggers, and then demanded protection payments from legitimate businesses. They even stalked Mexican elective politics. Just this past June, 35 candidates for local office were killed as cartels ensured that their own candidates won."
Sure to be a worthwhile read
January 30, 2022
Benjamin T. Smith presenta una historia del trafico de drogas en México de más de 100 años. Desde el fin de la era Porfiria a hasta 2020. Es una historia excelentemente documentada, bien narrada, de fácil lectura, entretenida y con un gran nivel de detalle, algo que sin duda apunta a la enorme calidad de la investigación histórica del libro.
La conclusión que uno puede sacar del libro es que el trafico de drogas en el país siempre ha sido un negocio de las más altas esferas del poder, usando los recursos que se generan desde para hacer proyectos públicos o simplemente para la acumulación de riqueza. La enorme crisis de seguridad que vivimos hoy tendría sus orígenes más inmediatos en la década de 1980, con la rápida perdida de capacidades del estado mexicano. La debilidad fiscal, las fuertes crisis económicas, la perdida de cohesión política e ideológica del PRI, junto con los enormes cambios de la híper globalización y su impacto en el negocio del tráfico terminaron por colapsar el estatal. El resultado una enorme descomposición de corrupción y violencia que sigue estando presente.
Es un libro sumamente recomendable para tratar de entender qué pasa en México, como llegamos a donde nos encontramos.
La conclusión que uno puede sacar del libro es que el trafico de drogas en el país siempre ha sido un negocio de las más altas esferas del poder, usando los recursos que se generan desde para hacer proyectos públicos o simplemente para la acumulación de riqueza. La enorme crisis de seguridad que vivimos hoy tendría sus orígenes más inmediatos en la década de 1980, con la rápida perdida de capacidades del estado mexicano. La debilidad fiscal, las fuertes crisis económicas, la perdida de cohesión política e ideológica del PRI, junto con los enormes cambios de la híper globalización y su impacto en el negocio del tráfico terminaron por colapsar el estatal. El resultado una enorme descomposición de corrupción y violencia que sigue estando presente.
Es un libro sumamente recomendable para tratar de entender qué pasa en México, como llegamos a donde nos encontramos.
February 7, 2023
I thought it lost the narrative a bit towards the end and could've gone into more detail, however, a good jumping off point for this topic, just a sad, messed up situation.
For most of the nineteenth century two groups had dominated the use of what would become illegal narcotics in the United States. Chinese men smoked opium and well-to-do women were prescribed morphine to combat pain. (62)
In the eight years it was open the Cafe Mint Bar became a Prohibition institution. (73)
Drug panics, however, had little to do with reality. In the United States - as in Mexico - panics had much more to do with how people perceived the racial and social profile of the trade. In this case, Americans feared black and Mexican-American dealers hawking narcotics to their white, suburban kids. (164)
But Mexico's most important role was as the source of the majority of the counterculture marijuana. If you were American and smoked a joint between 1960 and 1978, the likelihood is it came from Mexico. (215)
Between December 2006 and July 2010 the Mexican forces confiscated 85,511 weapons. Ninety percent came from the United States. (382)
It was the same answer the British agronomist Paul Yates had received four decades earlier. "Poppies." (405)
For most of the nineteenth century two groups had dominated the use of what would become illegal narcotics in the United States. Chinese men smoked opium and well-to-do women were prescribed morphine to combat pain. (62)
In the eight years it was open the Cafe Mint Bar became a Prohibition institution. (73)
Drug panics, however, had little to do with reality. In the United States - as in Mexico - panics had much more to do with how people perceived the racial and social profile of the trade. In this case, Americans feared black and Mexican-American dealers hawking narcotics to their white, suburban kids. (164)
But Mexico's most important role was as the source of the majority of the counterculture marijuana. If you were American and smoked a joint between 1960 and 1978, the likelihood is it came from Mexico. (215)
Between December 2006 and July 2010 the Mexican forces confiscated 85,511 weapons. Ninety percent came from the United States. (382)
It was the same answer the British agronomist Paul Yates had received four decades earlier. "Poppies." (405)
December 14, 2021
Maybe it is because I had just read some of the best nonfiction of the year, or maybe because "Narcos" overdramatized the reality, but this book just fell a little flat for me.
The first half was a slog. One name after the next, with little tidbits about each person, only to never hear about them again. No real cohesiveness between the stories other than the chronological placement and some geographic ties. I felt like I needed a pen and paper to try and visualize all of the connections.
Yes, the author clearly outlines the major shifts in the drug trade: from opium, to weed, to coke, etc., but it wasn't until the back half of this book, where the author deviates from a list of names and tries to explain the why's and the how's that it really got interesting.
And sure, maybe that is largely the result of a lack of original source material, but then maybe the author was being a little too ambitious. I think the first third of this book could be been distilled further and nothing would be lost.
The author's overall thesis, that the violence and problems are the result of actions from the state are well supported and that is an interesting perspective, but maybe I'm just a sucker for narrative nonfiction and this was not that.
The first half was a slog. One name after the next, with little tidbits about each person, only to never hear about them again. No real cohesiveness between the stories other than the chronological placement and some geographic ties. I felt like I needed a pen and paper to try and visualize all of the connections.
Yes, the author clearly outlines the major shifts in the drug trade: from opium, to weed, to coke, etc., but it wasn't until the back half of this book, where the author deviates from a list of names and tries to explain the why's and the how's that it really got interesting.
And sure, maybe that is largely the result of a lack of original source material, but then maybe the author was being a little too ambitious. I think the first third of this book could be been distilled further and nothing would be lost.
The author's overall thesis, that the violence and problems are the result of actions from the state are well supported and that is an interesting perspective, but maybe I'm just a sucker for narrative nonfiction and this was not that.
April 6, 2022
One of the best histories on the Mexican drug trade out there. This author really dug into the history of drug smuggling and production in Mexico, going back to the 1800s and beyond. While most other sources only attribute the drug trade and gangs in Mexico to either the mid-1800s or Prohibition, most do not address its history until the 1980s. Yet, there is a far more detailed story about drugs in Mexico. There is significant involvement from the US, which drives much of the demand as well as the policies, which the author feels were for the worst. The political figures who dealt with the trade and key players in the drug world had various levels of success and adaptability, but it was something that was never really defeated, and the various ills within the Mexican government and outside pressures set the stage for the brutal conditions that have haunted the country.
This can be a hard read, but it is extremely informative. It should be a go-to for anyone wanting to know the real history/back-story of drugs in Mexico. Hard copy/e-copy, or audiobook. Should be read at least once.
This can be a hard read, but it is extremely informative. It should be a go-to for anyone wanting to know the real history/back-story of drugs in Mexico. Hard copy/e-copy, or audiobook. Should be read at least once.
May 23, 2022
I have read a ton of books about the North American drug trade and Mexico in particular. This one of the best of the bunch simply because Smith goes back more than a century to trace how the Mexican drug trade got to the place it is now. Ben Smith traces how Mexico faced its own conflict with domestic drug production and consumption in years around WWI when fears of Mexican soldiers soothing themselves with marijuana were mixed with anti-Chinese racism for the imiigrants who had bought opium to the Mexican Pacific coast in the late 19th century, led to some of the 1st Mexican crackdowns on the drug trade. Then over the coming years pressure from the US ran up against the decentralization and corruption of mid 20 th century Mexico to drive the drug trade even further underground. From Harry Anslinger and the FBN during the 1930s and 1940s to Nixon's creation of the DEA in the early 1970s, the more the the drug trade was forced into the black market, the more violent and destructive it became to Mexican society.
By the time we get to Calderone's War on the Cartels in 2008 we see a Mexico being torn apart by unholy amounts of violence that left 50,000 dead in a decade.
By the time we get to Calderone's War on the Cartels in 2008 we see a Mexico being torn apart by unholy amounts of violence that left 50,000 dead in a decade.
January 4, 2023
Ahahaha you can really tell that amid his researching, the author definitely got carried away watching a bunch of movies related to Mexican drug trading and passed it off as doing homework. Cause like you'll be reading pages of facts and true recounts and then suddenly the author would be like 'oh yeah this reminds me of this stereotypical mexican movie about trading drugs' and then proceeds to write a detailed - and sometimes over elaborate - summary of the whole movie (like those Wikipedia pages for famous films and stuff). And he also spoils them! Like he'll tell you the ending and everything lol.
I think what makes it the most ironic is that he also states at the beginning of the book and stuff about how these kind of movies and literature cause stereotypes which affect how accurate data surrounding drugs in Mexico are collected. So essentially he would talk and give a whole ass movie review only to be like 'anywaysss that's not relevant' lmao.
But idk this book is like super dense and it just gets a bit too much sometimes where the details become repetitive and starts to get jumbled up and stuff. There's alot of like anecdotes which are really interesting though.
I think what makes it the most ironic is that he also states at the beginning of the book and stuff about how these kind of movies and literature cause stereotypes which affect how accurate data surrounding drugs in Mexico are collected. So essentially he would talk and give a whole ass movie review only to be like 'anywaysss that's not relevant' lmao.
But idk this book is like super dense and it just gets a bit too much sometimes where the details become repetitive and starts to get jumbled up and stuff. There's alot of like anecdotes which are really interesting though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 27, 2021
Drug Trade History
It is difficult to rate this book. If you are primarily interested in the last 20 years, you should give it a pass, and I would give it two stars. If you want a really detailed and long explanation of how did we get here and why are these our policies and how does any of this make sense, then you have found the perfect book. If you want scholarly research with detailed footnotes, a quick reading would make an effective overview, but otherwise the book will not help you. A dilemma for the author I surmise was to find a nonfiction voice that was interesting but not tale-telling, detailed but not pedantic, inclusive but not unfiltered. The narrative tone is not consistent. There are times when the author makes judgments when the reader nods along and times when the reader wants to know how the blank did he know that or who says? This could have been a great book and it doesn't achieve that, but it is illuminating and thorough in an area almost impossible to cover.
It is difficult to rate this book. If you are primarily interested in the last 20 years, you should give it a pass, and I would give it two stars. If you want a really detailed and long explanation of how did we get here and why are these our policies and how does any of this make sense, then you have found the perfect book. If you want scholarly research with detailed footnotes, a quick reading would make an effective overview, but otherwise the book will not help you. A dilemma for the author I surmise was to find a nonfiction voice that was interesting but not tale-telling, detailed but not pedantic, inclusive but not unfiltered. The narrative tone is not consistent. There are times when the author makes judgments when the reader nods along and times when the reader wants to know how the blank did he know that or who says? This could have been a great book and it doesn't achieve that, but it is illuminating and thorough in an area almost impossible to cover.
August 11, 2024
This is a long and tiring book full of names that despite taking 13 pages of notes ,over 3 weeks, I still cant fully get who these people were and how they are related. Along the way Ben Smith gives us the why. Prohibition sent Americans south of the border for alcohol, drugs and debauchery. The Chinese introduced poppies and opium,which were often grown between corn rows. Later Mexico became a transhipping hub for the French Connection and Colombia. The military and police contributed their talents towards protection rackets,extortion and torture to institutionalize crime in Mexico. This book casts its perspective so wide that only an expert could really appreciate the scope. Most readers will hope to have gained a deeper understanding of Mexican Narcos, but will come away depressed. Knowing that what Prohibition initiated turned into a dark ugly beast, which doesnt seem to have any desire to die. Fentanyl is the latest drug of choice in the US and that is sent from China via the Dark Web. Death,misery for profit and inventive new ways to transport drugs using catapults, drones and submersibles continue to dog interdiction. At the same time America continues to supply Mexico with plenty of guns to further perpetuate this Narco state.
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