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 bestselling 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 frontlines across the globe — from the streets of London’s King’s Cross to 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.

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‘Lucid and well-researched.’

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‘Vivid reportage.’

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‘Loewenstein gives a thorough and convincing picture of an utterly failed policy.’

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‘An eye-opening exposé of the modern drugs trade.’

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‘Many people assume that as the war on drugs has failed and because a few countries have liberated cannabis as a recreational drug as well as a medicine, the “drug problem” is solved. This new book powerfully demolishes any such complacency that might have developed in the west. Drug wars represent a major, ongoing world-wide disaster. This book is a must-read for anyone pursuing a rational policy debate about drugs.’

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‘In this vivid, partisan piece of reportage, Australian journalist Loewenstein (Disaster Capitalism) depicts the catastrophic human consequences of the U.S.-led war on drugs and advocates for the legalisation of all illicit substances. Loewenstein argues that America’s prohibitionist policy serves not to counter abuse or impede trafficking, but rather to create corrupt “narco states” that are complicit with the federal government’s foreign policy goals ... Readers inclined to take a skeptical view of the drug war ... will welcome Loewenstein’s advocacy.’

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‘A critique of the war on drugs, which, by the author’s account, is mostly a war on the poor and dispossessed ... The author examines several fronts in a war fought by Western governments, especially the U.S., on harder drugs that ‘are consumed nightly in such major cities as London, Sydney, New York, and Paris’ ... A sometimes overwrought but pressing survey calling into question a war that would seem to benefit only its combatants.’

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‘Pills, Powder, and Smoke provides vital coverage of a war that may never be won, but that desperately demands out attention.’

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‘He brings humanity and an even hand to his journalism, attempting to draw out multiple perspectives and asking questions from all angles but doing so with intimacy and palpable emotion ... Loewenstein believes in a moral drug policy, in ethical drug-taking and in fair-trade drugs, and makes no bones about wanting to change the conversation.’

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‘A great read that cements my view that the war on drugs will never be won.’

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‘Thought-provoking.’

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‘A forensic look at the war on drugs.’