I was told about this book by a friend few years ago and I bought the book few months ago at a local library book sale. Eventually I got around reading this book and let me tell you it was very informative and eye opening. Don't let the title of this book make you avert from reading it. It really has nothing to do with what title says. On the contrary this book is a good piece of investigative journalism by Tom Wainwright on the business of illegal drugs and drug cartels if you are to look at a bigger picture. Turns out that legal corporations and drug cartels share quite a bit in common from controlling supply to customer service to everything in middle such as marketing, public relations etc. Knowing how the "system" works can provide useful insight on how to dismantle or weaken the system. The war on illegal drugs isn't new but this book highlights how the efforts are directed where they are least to make any significant impact. For example, rather than attacking supply side the book makes a point how much useful it would be to control the demand side of the business. Rather than allocating more police force to stop the sale of drugs it would be helpful to invest money in public campaigns such as criminal re-education, after school activities, job placements for prisoners after they get out and such.
There is also the argument of legalizing some of the drugs such as marijuana. Fortunately some states are seeing the point of economists and starting to do that. Not only that will weaken the cartels hold of the drug business but can lead to decrease in violence and more money in taxes and licensing for the states.
In my opinion this is a well-written book on investigative journalism with arguments backed by statistical data. I recommend highly recommend this book. There are other books in this category one of my favourite is American Kingpin by Nick Bilton.
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