San Antonio College Library

"The Strength of the Wolf is the first complete history of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), which existed from 1930 until its wrenching termination in 1968. The most successful federal law enforcement agency ever, the FBN was populated by some of the most amazing characters in American history, many of whom the author interviewed for this book. Working as undercover agents and with mercenary informers around the globe, these freewheeling "case-making"...

"Alcohol, opiates, cocaine and marijuana, among other drugs, have been used and abused for millennia. Before the disease-model approach to drug addiction, which posits that addiction is a psychological and biological problem and that sufferers are victims, societies had a workable solution: let people consume what they want, and let informal cultural controls reinforce responsible behavior. Legal sanctions were reserved for any use that affected the...

"Part true crime, part work of urban sociology, Land of Opportunity is a meticulously researched account of the rise and fall of the Chambers brothers, who ran a multi-million-dollar crack cocaine operation in Detroit in the 1980s. Descended from Arkansas sharecroppers, BJ, Larry, and Willie Chambers moved to Detroit seeking economic opportunity, and built a successful drug empire by applying strict business principles to their trade; their business...

In America's twenty-five-year war against drugs, only one national policy achieved some success. That was the Nixon Administration's program for treating heroin addicts, which was dismantled by the Reagan Administration. In The Fix, Michael Massing exposes the political and ideological narrow-mindedness that have made national drug policy a failure, and demonstrates convincingly why we should reinstate the policy that worked. Massing shows that drug...