Wow! eBook
Africa and the War on Drugs
Author(s): Neil Carrier (Author), Gernot Klantschnig (Author)
- Publisher: Zed Books
- Publication Date: 11 Oct. 2012
- Language: English
- Print length: 184 pages
- ISBN-10: 1848139675
- ISBN-13: 9781848139671
Book Description
Nigerian drug lords in UK prisons, khat-chewing Somali pirates hijacking Western ships, crystal meth-smoking gangs controlling South Africa’s streets, and narco-traffickers corrupting the state in Guinea-Bissau: these are some of the vivid images surrounding drugs in Africa which have alarmed policymakers, academics and the general public in recent years. In this revealing and original book, the authors weave these aspects into a provocative argument about Africa’s role in the global trade and control of drugs. In doing so, they show how foreign-inspired policies have failed to help African drug users but have strengthened the role of corrupt and brutal law enforcement officers, who are tasked with halting the export of heroin and cocaine to European and American consumer markets.
A vital book on an overlooked front of the so-called war on drugs.
Editorial Reviews
Review
A fresh, ambitious, and critical survey of drug use and trafficking in Africa, where globalization has added cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine to local staples like beer, khat, and cannabis. Carrier and Klantschnig explore the continent’s changing drug ecologies, the mixed implications for development, and policy responses that have ranged from more drug wars to state complicity in the traffic. –David T. Courtwright, presidential professor, Department of History, University of North Florida
Nuanced, insightful and clear-headed, this book offers a devastating challenge to the war on drugs and its apologists. –Jonny Steinberg, University of Oxford
About the Author
Neil Carrier is a departmental lecturer in African anthropology based at the African Studies Centre, Oxford.
Gernot Klantschnig is a senior lecturer in the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of York.
