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Pills, Powder, and Smoke
- Inside the Bloody War on Drugs
- Narrated by: John Derum
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Like the never-ending war on terror, the drugs war is a multi-billion-dollar industry that won’t go down without a fight. Pills, Powder, and Smoke explains why.
The war on drugs has been official American policy since the 1970s, with the UK, Europe and much of the world following suit. It is at best a failed policy, according to best-selling author Antony Loewenstein. Its direct results have included mass incarceration in the US, extreme violence in different parts of the world, the backing of dictatorships, and surging drug addiction globally. And now the Trump administration is unleashing diplomatic and military forces against any softening of the conflict.
Pills, Powder, and Smoke investigates the individuals, officials, activists, victims, DEA agents and traffickers caught up in this deadly war. Travelling through the UK, the US, Australia, Honduras, the Philippines and Guinea-Bissau, Loewenstein uncovers the secrets of the drug war, why it's so hard to end and who is really profiting from it. In reporting on the front lines across the globe - from the killing fields of Central America to major cocaine transit routes in West Africa - Loewenstein reveals how the war on drugs has become the most deadly war in modern times.
Designed and inspired by Washington, its agenda has nothing to do with ending drug use or addiction but is all about controlling markets, territories and people. Instead, Loewenstein argues, the legalisation and regulation of all drugs would be a much more realistic and humane approach. The evidence presented in this book will persuade many listeners that he's right.
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Performance
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The story of Donald Trump’s rise to power is the story of a buried American history - buried because people in power liked it that way. It was visible without being seen, influential without being named, ubiquitous without being overt. Sarah Kendzior’s Hiding in Plain Sight pulls back the veil on a history spanning decades, a history of an American autocrat in the making. In doing so, she reveals how our continual loss of freedom, the rise of consolidated corruption, and the secrets behind a burgeoning autocratic United States have been hiding in plain sight for decades.
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Not as good as she thinks it is
- By Douglas A. Greenberg on 05-01-20
By: Sarah Kendzior
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Wildland
- The Making of America's Fury
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos
- Length: 17 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In search of an explanation for the crisis that reached an unsettling crescendo in 2020 - a year of pandemic, civil unrest, and political turmoil - National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Evan Osnos returned to three places he knew firsthand: Greenwich, Connecticut; Clarksburg, West Virginia; and Chicago, Illinois. Reported over the course of six years, Wildland follows ordinary individuals as they navigate the varied landscapes of 21st-century America. Through their powerful, often poignant stories, Osnos traces the sources of America’s political dissolution.
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More of a painting than analysis
- By Eric Taylor on 09-27-21
By: Evan Osnos
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The Dope
- The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade
- By: Benjamin T. Smith
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Stuffy British Reader Abuses the Spanish Language
- By pilot on 03-19-22
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A Savage Order
- How the World's Deadliest Countries Can Forge a Path to Security
- By: Rachel Kleinfeld
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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From Georgia to Colombia to Ghana and Italy - crime exists in every democratic nation on earth, but in some places, it runs rampant, shaping all aspects of civic life. A Savage Order investigates why and how some places, riddled by inept government and states, are able to recover. Drawing on fifteen years of both academic and firsthand field research, Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld documents the unambiguous measures that societies have taken to empower the strong civic movements, governments, and institutions that protect countries and mitigate atrocities that damage people's lives.
By: Rachel Kleinfeld
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We Keep Us Safe
- Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities
- By: Zach Norris, Van Jones
- Narrated by: Adam Lazarre-White
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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As the effects of aggressive policing and mass incarceration harm historically marginalized communities and tear families apart, how do we define safety? In a time when the most powerful institutions in the United States are embracing the repressive and racist systems that keep many communities struggling and in fear, we need to reimagine what safety means. Community leader and lawyer Zach Norris lays out a radical way to shift the conversation about public safety away from fear and punishment and toward growth and support systems for our families and communities.
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Definitely a must read for our times
- By Mark R. Hamlin on 12-31-20
By: Zach Norris, and others
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Prison by Any Other Name
- The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms
- By: Maya Schenwar, Victoria Law, Michelle Alexander - foreword
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Electronic monitoring. Locked-down drug treatment centers. House arrest. Mandated psychiatric treatment. Data-driven surveillance. Extended probation. These are some of the key alternatives held up as cost-effective substitutes for jails and prisons. But many of these so-called reforms actually widen the net, weaving in new strands of punishment and control, and bringing new populations, who would not otherwise have been subject to imprisonment, under physical control by the state.
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I would give this book 6 stars out of 5.
- By Happy on 11-28-20
By: Maya Schenwar, and others
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50 Things They Don't Want You to Know
- By: Jerome Hudson
- Narrated by: Marc William
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In 50 Things They Don’t Want You to Know Jerome Hudson dives deeply into the things Americans are not supposed to realize. Many of our most hotly debate topics are shaped by Davos power brokers, woke college professors, TV talking heads, social media activists and feckless Washington swamp monsters who want you to only follow their narrative.
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Don’t waste your time and money
- By greenemann on 08-15-21
By: Jerome Hudson
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The Russia Conundrum
- How the West Fell for Putin's Power Gambit—and How to Fix It
- By: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Martin Sixsmith - contributor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Mikhail Khodorkovsky has seen behind the mask of Vladimir Putin. Once an oil tycoon and the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky spoke out against the corruption of Putin's regime—and was punished by the Kremlin, stripped of his entire wealth and jailed for over ten years. Now freed, working as a pro-democracy campaigner in enforced exile, Khodorkovsky brings us the insider's battle to save his country's soul. Offering an urgent analysis of what has gone wrong with Putin, The Russia Conundrum maps the country's rise and fall against Khodorkovsky's own journey.
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This should be required reading!
- By Jasmine J. on 10-29-22
By: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and others
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Democracy Now!
- Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America
- By: Amy Goodman, David Goodman, Denis Moynihan - contributor
- Narrated by: Amy Goodman
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1996 Amy Goodman started a radio show called Democracy Now! to focus on the issues that are underreported or ignored by mainstream news coverage. Shortly after September 11, 2001, they were broadcasting on television every weekday. Today it is the only public media in the US that airs simultaneously on satellite and cable television, radio, and the Internet. Now Amy and her journalist brother, David, share stories of the progressive heroes - the whistleblowers, the organizers, the protestors - who have brought about remarkable, often invisible change.
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this is awesome
- By Michael Garcia on 04-26-17
By: Amy Goodman, and others