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A SILENT NIGHTMARE: The bottom line and the challenge of illicit drugs
by Sergio Ferragut
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Lulu.com (2007-09-05)
ISBN: 1430329440
EAN: 9781430329442
Dewey Decimal #: 031
Binding/Media: Paperback - 300 pages
SKU: L3-77090312002
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comments: This Signed by the Author with Inscription, is in very good condition. No visible markings, highlights, underlining, tears to text. Tight spine. No Dust Jacket. Back Soft Cover has tiny scratches with minimum, shelf/edge wear. Great reading copy, worth having at an affordable price. (L3-77)
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
A Silent Nightmare presents a blueprint for a viable drug policy. America has been immersed in the struggle against illicit drugs for decades; however, drug use and abuse continue to weight heavily on the shoulders of our youth, crime associated with illicit drugs has increased dramatically, and the drug traffickers and their stealth friends in the business world continue to grow richer. This book uncovers the drug facts - the myths, the root causes, and the many drug-related events - and delivers the urgently needed hope that much can be achieved with a different drug policy. It is the author's intention to shed light on a new path leading towards a more rational, coherent and humane drug policy. He joins many distinguished personalities, including the late Milton Friedman, Economics Nobel Prize winner, William F. Buckley, Jr., founder of the National Review, and Walter Cronkite, award-winning journalist, who have raised their voices calling for an overhaul of the current failed drug policy.
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Customer Reviews
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The Worldwide Illicit Drug Business
Rating  (5)
Date: 2009-08-28
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is an outstanding Book. Sergio Ferragut has an excellent analytical mind and uses it to dissect all aspects of the illicit drug business worldwide. He presents an overview of that business by addressing Cultivation/Production of illicit drugs, Demand for illicit drugs, Supply/Distribution of them with particular emphasis on the role of Mexico as both a producer and transshipper of many illicit drugs. He also covers the historic U.S.-sponsored international War on Drugs, Supply/Demand curves (Economics 101) for specific drugs promulgated by the illicit drug industry and Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs). He provides detailed scenarios for drug money laundering, one of the critical aspects for success for an international producer participating in the U.S. market. I found that chapter scintillating and also the following one of Myths and Realities - the Bottom Line on Illicit Drugs, Drug Use and Abuse, the War on Drugs and Drug Money Laundering. He dug up as a model a 1933 analysis of the Prohibition of Alcohol, "Toward Liquor Control" by Raymond B. Fosdick and Alfred L. Scott and draws extensive parallels to the current situation with illicit drugs. That is no surprise when you find out that his diagnosis offers 4 alternative approaches (zero tolerance, consumption tolerance, laissez faire legislation, legalization and control) and strongly recommends the legalization and control approach. Although he makes a good case for that, I am very skeptical that legalization and control will take the money out of illicit drugs and the illicit drug lords will roll over and allow themselves to be forced out of what I expect would be a lucrative and still highly profitable enterprise. Nevertheless, the astonishing wealth of facts and analysis in the book will help you to become well informed about a subject you don't read much about. I highly recommend this book.
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The epiphany of a former drug enforcement agent
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-06-03
5 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
After 40 years in law enforcement and national security, my views on drug trafficking reflected those of my peers. However, Ferragut's research leads me to conclude that by any measure of effectiveness we care to apply the so called "war on drugs" has been, continues to be, and will end-up as an abysmal failure; a corrupt and corrupting concept that has caused more damage and human misery than any other ill conceived government program. By classifying a health problem as a "war" -at least in the public's mind - the only acceptable outcome is "victory" (however defined), anything less than that is failure. Sometime in the not too distant future the so called "War on Drugs" will be viewed as a quaint relic of 20th Century hysteria, just as we now view the 1918 War Time Prohibition Act. The biggest success that the "War on Drugs" can claim is that millions have switched from illicit drugs to abusing pharmaceuticals; same problem, drug abuse, different providers. Ferragut's education and experience in banking and systems analysis is evident, his argument devoid of partisanship or ideological bias. The main issues of illicit drug trafficking: Use and Abuse, Illicit Drug Trade, the War on Drugs, and Money Laundering are well researched and end with an objective cost benefit analysis. The concluding chapters; "Bottom Line - Myths and Realities," Lessons from Alcohol Prohibition, and the Solution Spectrum" identify policy guidelines: Zero Tolerance, Consumption Tolerance, Laissez faire legalization, and Legalization and Control. The book's appendices include illustrations of the Stock Transaction Model and Building Economic Empires with Drug Money, which provides the model of a compelling payback mechanism involving a private and public stock transaction combination of the stock of companies involved in money laundering. These two illustrations justify the cost of the book, which includes an excellent bibliography, and a comprehensive list of acronyms.
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A Silent Nightmare
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-02-21
3 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
The war on drugs has failed. Drug cartels are flourishing. We will never win the war. Elementary economics, the cartels decentralization, and the cartels unlimited money for weapons and bribes show us why. Even honest politicians, drug officers, and even generals have been infected by the corruption the cartels breed. They either accept the bribe or will be killed. This is an estimated $400 billion dollar business the author says.
What really got me interested the book is the war going on in Mexico. You don't hear much about it; it is a "silent nightmare," but Mexico is in a war fighting corruption and drug cartels. Some of their tactics have been as brutal as al Qaeda's, including beheadings, bombings, torture, killing of children, and assignations. Often when members of the cartel are arrested they are found with weapons more powerful then the military including thousands of ammunition, grenades, cash, sometimes hundreds of assault rifles, battlefield rifles. The violence is happening right along the border, right in our backyard. The author and recent news articles I have read have found links between the cartels and human trafficking of people in the Middle East and even possible communication to terror organizations in the Middle East. These groups need to be taken as serious as the War On Terror.
The author briefly introduces the drugs the cartels deal with, the prices, and some of the consequences of using them. He uses lots of statics and some graphs. He goes on to talk about the drug business and the how the war on drugs is failing. The best chapter is how he explains how the cartels turn their dirty money into clean money via money laundering and the gray economy. In the end, the author concludes there are parallels between alcohol prohibition and illegal drugs and he presents us with five solutions that should be debated. What he wants is some form of legalization and a "broadbased drug education grounded on values and not on intimidation and fear." I don't disagree but I see this as not politically possible. Because the cartels are a cash-only business, I believe there may be other solutions, I am not sure how possible they are, but they have a fatal weakness if society continues to become an economy of credit. Also the sealing of our borders is not discussed as a solution. I think it should have been discussed even if it would not help because many see this as a solution.
Overall the book provides a solid introduction and *some* solutions Americans should be discussing.
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Need a true statesmen/stateswomen to grab this bull by the horns!
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-12-15
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Politicias like to look at the public opinion polls before taking a position on significant issues. Statesmen and stateswomen (statespersons) deliver the message they believe provides the greater benefit to society and furnish the supporting arguments; they take risks, they don't go down with the current or in the direction of the wind. See what has happened to our nation with the war in Iraq, five years ago anybody who dared to question the wisdom of going to war with Iraq was deemed to be a traitor, public opinion was bluntly manipulated to march into Iraq. Today we know this has been the greatest foreign policy blunder the US has made and we are struggling to figure out how to get out of there with minimal additional damage. A parallel can be drawn between the war in Iraq and the decades-old "war on drugs." Somehow it is not politically correct to call for the end of the war on drugs, such position is equated by many with the promotion of drug use. Nothing is farther from the truth as I have documented --with US Government and United Nations data-- in A Silent Nightmare. These facts demonstrate that today there are more drugs available in the US and at lower prices that when President Nixon declared the "war on drugs" in 1971. Drug prohibition rather than becoming a deterrent to drug use as it was supposed to be, has become a primary business driver of the illicit drug trade. The collateral damage resulting from the current drug prohibition policy is many orders of magnitude worse than the damage drug use may inflict to our society and our youth under a new drug paradigm, under a policy of legalization and control. This analysis is what A Silent Nightmare presents and supports with sound US Government and United Nations data.
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A change in drug policy is urgently needed and "A Silent Nightmare" clearly articulates the compelling case.
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-12-02
3 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
The author clearly lays out the far reaching and devastating effects of poorly conceived drug policies and offers viable, albeit politically controversial, solutions. Those solutions require a radical shift in approach and tremendous political courage. This fact-based book opened my eyes to the global impacts -- social and economic -- from illegal drug production, distribution, use, and criminalization and the urgent need to do something now. Current policies aren't working. This book offers viable solutions. A must read for anyone (and especially politicians) who care about the health and well-being of our nation and global neighbors.
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