other authors who have tackled the subject of illicit drugs, Dominic Streatfield lays no subtitled spin on his subject, His approach mirrors traditional biographies, thick profiles of historical figures or movements or ideas, In Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography, we simply learn about where cocaine came from, the people who discovered it, the people who converted it from coca leaves into powder and then much later smokable rocks, and the people who use it, sell it, sell it big time, and die because of it either the violence surrounding its international trade or the addictive effects of the substance itself.
Streatfield works hard to collect these stories, traveling to Columbia and Austria, conducting extensive conversations with experts in the field, who speak from university research labs, city streets and prison cells.
"Of all the interviewees I contacted in the course of researching this book including a Nobel Laaureate and a number of extremely serious scientists Ross came across as the brightest.
By far," Streatfield says of the man credited with inventing Ready Rock, later known as "crack, " He proceeds to tell us the story of how Ricky Ross grew up, his early forays into crime, and the events during and after his attempt to get a college education.
It's obvious Streatfield, who pops in and out of each scene and segway as a firstperson narrator chasing the story, thinks this story is unfortunate.
It's also obvious that he thinks it's fascinating, and his enthusiasm and curiosity create a readable and thorough account of the drug's role throughout history.
To anyone who reads the news and endeavors to know what lies way back behind major forces shaping the substance and face of crime in America today, cocaine deserves this biography.
Streatfield explains how cocaine evolved into role it plays now: from the tradition of chewing coca leaves in South and Central America to Freud and his colleagues' risky and feverish experimentation with medical uses for the drug to the elusive and extravagant kingpins of thes ands to the modern American law enforcement war against the powder and Mr.
Ross's rock, the one that will keep him in prison for the rest of his life,
However terrible the consequences of his creation, I am grateful to Streatfield for giving Ross a voice, Though "unauthorized," the book treats cocaine and the people who shaped its history quite fairly, The author's attention to detail and thoroughness bring the experience of reading it to a place both compelling and educational, and satisfy every curiosity a reader could develop about the subject.
He doesn't skimp on the way the drug feels, why it holds addictive and remunerative appeal, and its widespread commercial and medical use before it became cast as a vice.
And I'm quite glad to know, once and for all, what cocaine has to do with my favorite hometown cola, Very British, had a few audible laughs while reading this, I took the first half of the book with a grain of salt as the writer mentions, but doesnt seem to double down on, the fact that some of it is largely speculative but can be considered plausible by some supporting events/documents.
Would love to see a follow up on how the trade has changed in the last twenty years, This was a fun book, I've found that I have a fondness for 'commodity history', which I suppose shouldn't surprise me, given my interest in trivia, Still, these kinds of books risk being ponderous, but thankfully that wasn't the case here, Streatfeild has a charming dry wit that he applies skillfully to his treatment of the topic, sprinkling it in just the right measures and in just the right places to make his narrative engrossing, while also avoiding making light of the heavier aspects of cocaine's story like murder and rampant South American poverty among coca growers.
Much of the more recent history covered near the end is obviously dated, as the book was published in the earlys, but that doesn't detract from the Cocaine's informative value, as Streatfeild is a thorough reporter who has researched the topic of cocaine exhaustively.
Definitely a rewarding read.
I've read a lot of books on the topic of drugs and about cocaine specifically, Dominic Streatfield takes an enormous amount of information and organizes it so well that what could be a dry book topic reads like a thriller.
The story of cocaine is a convoluted one and it's tricky to just trace it's history much less delve into solutions, This book tackles it all, the history, the advancement of the drug, the various players involved in it's production or it's prosecution, it's effect on various countries, the way it's tied into politics and power.
This should be read by all because it's relevant to us all, Especially in America, where we are throwing money at a problem that cannot be solved by money, We need to learn from history and make some different decisions, And while the story is often depressing, I was left with hope because there are people out there who are trying to make a difference, and there are ideas out there that have the potential to help make a dent in the problem.
This book is a little heavy on the firstperson, but it doesn't take long to realize why: The process of researching it had to be at least as fascinating not to mention dangerous as the actual story of cocaine.
Streatfeild has some serious cojones, amp he digs deep into every corner he can find from documenting Coca Cola's surprisingly twisted role in the drug wars to interviewing teenage narcoassassins deep in the Colombian jungle.
He's the perfect narrator of this story, if only because he's able to relate the drug wars amp the history of coca from a relatively unbiased point of view: He doesn't use the stuff, amp he recognizes the serious damage it tends to do, but he also recognizes the massive damage done by the typical kneejerk, chestthumping, toughoncrime American way of trying to deal with it.
This is a thorough treatment of cocaine, good for anybody who cares about fun, history, science, law, revolutions, media, . .
The drug war is as close as I'll come to a litmus test of whether somebody is willing to engage in a substantive policy debate instead of sticking to a political orthodoxy.
This book shows how dependent drug laws are on which groups are associated with drug use and drug control, and the social status of those groups.
Since I wrote it out elsewhere, here's the skinny on mini discs:
His attention wandered all the time, And yet, while he Jorge Ochoa, major columbian drug lord wasn't the easiest interviewee in the world, there was a certain ebullience to him that was hard not to find charming.
At one point, when his wife said that she had a minidisc player just like the one I was using to record the interview, he commented that he had never heard conversation played through one.
What was the sound quality like We stopped recording, I passed over a pair of headphones and played Jorge our last conversation, The reaction was instantaneous: he burst into uproarious laughter at the sound of his own voice, beaming with delight like a child'It's perfect!' he cried.
'Perfect!'
pStreatfeild might be the perfect person to tell you all about cocaine, because at the outset of writing this book he knew as much about it as the average Westerner: i.
e. , not much. That might sound like a bad thing but it actually isn't, because Streatfeild goes into the history, culture, and economics of cocaine with no preconceived notions.
He talks to everyone from Colombian politicians to DEA agents to Freud experts to Marxist guerrillas to worldfamous mostwanted traffickers, and he does it all with good humor and a healthy suspicion of everyone's story.
The surprisingly entertaining account starts to drag around three hundred pages, but just when you think you can't take any more minutiae about the agricultural dynamics of the Bolivian hinterland, the pace picks up again with a visit to the infamous Ochoa brothers.
All in all, an informative and largely unbiased account of one of the biggest, baddest industries in the world, So far:
First of alla note on the Cocaine's tone, which is familiar, cutesy, silly, very British, A bit too silly, it is also endearing, amp can get the reader through a lot of initially dry but important material such as Inca history, Spanish colonial mines amp the forced labor system of mita imposed on the native South Americans, patent medicines, amp the way
cocaine interweaves through all these stories.
I also enjoyed how he depicted the process of research for the book itself, making it the humorous, sometimes futile process it so often is amp making the reader aware that this analysis wasn't out there written in stone but existed as invisible connections never made before between all sorts of old texts in the British library, for example.
Streatfield naively doesn't question criminalization, amp does bring in some fairly tainted stuff like the infamous "cocaine rat" experiments hint: they worked that way b/c the animals' landscapes were bare of any other normal stimulus, amp the rats' lives were traumatized and barren.
When placed in normal social contexts with a complex environment to explore amp interact with, rats and other animals do not choose Drugs Over Life, but instead seem to settle on a moderate daily dose of whatever it is, even decreasing their intake if the solution given to them becomes more potent.
But that doesn't mean this book isn't chock full of yummy, relevant research amp Streatfield does undermine drug hysteria no matter what his views are.
Finished the bookscratch that, he does go into decrim as one of the few viable responses to cocaine as a political issue, but only really in the very last chapter of his nearlypage book.
I guess the "cocaine is bad for you, mmmmk " tone of the book fooled meI wished he'd just said that it's part of a vast pharmacopia that humankind has been using for centuries amp that it can be useful in strict moderationyou know, some harm reduction smarts, recognizing that it's not the drug itself but set, setting, and situation.
He does rail against demonization of the drug, amp drug war horror myths about it, as well as show a deep sympathy to poor South American coca growers whose economic needs are ignored or responded to in incredibly unrealistic waysor the way they amp their environment are sabotaged by the US spreading a fungus that kills coca plantsamp EVERYTHING ELSEon their soil.
amp he also makes an all important distinction between coca and cocaineone is a mild stimulant that's been integrated into South American culture for thousands of years, while the other, much more intense, is a modern development.
Most studies of cocaine don't go into coca, its precursor, amp that's a huge failing that Streatfield wisely avoids, I was fascinated at the beginning of the book when he tries coca chewing himselfamazing intro gimmick,
The last thing that really bothered me is how uncritical he was about the addiction/dopamine studies of Dr, Nora Volkow Trotsky's granddaughter, by the way, as Susan Cheever, another uncritical audience for these addiction studies, tell us in her silly sex addiction book, especially the animal studies, not seeking out any opposing theories, and not putting in the disclaimer that the study of neurotransmitters is still in its infancy.
But besides these faults, the book was incredibly informative, amp though silly, quite fun to read, .