Law/Politics Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State

No other book has aroused in me such anger and indignation as this one. At times I required brief respite from reading to calm myself, lest my emotions overwhelm me. Other readers had similar reactions to the text, with one review stating, “each page of this book makes me so mad that I have to get up and walk around to work off the outrage I feel.” Another reviewer declared that he wanted to burn an American flag after finishing the book, and ended the review with, “If you're not enraged by the time you're finished reading this book, your heart is dead.” Drug Warriors and Their Prey is an infuriating portrait of the War on Drugs, and as such, it’s a great introduction to anti-prohibitionist literature for the uninitiated, and even those opposed to drug use. I would also highly recommend this to ardent proponents of drug policy reform, even those well read in the field, as Miller’s deliberative analysis produces a unique lens through which the drug war is seen for what it truly is: a war on ordinary people, a war on civil liberties, and a war on democracy itself.


An independent scholar, Richard L. Miller first treated the subject of drugs with a more objective (in terms of premise, not methodology) and comprehensive analysis in The Case for Legalizing Drugs, published in 1991. His subsequent work, Nazi Justiz: Law of the Holocaust, was published in 1995, and examines the pivotal role of the German judicial system in the process of destruction that sought to annihilate the entire Jewish population. The focus of this review, Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State, was released the following year, and constitutes an amalgamation of the concepts and themes presented in the previous two books. The structure and organization of the text is borrowed from Nazi Justiz, and is derived from Raul Hilberg’s, “monumental study of the destruction process as applied to the Holocaust.” Miller visualizes the elements of destruction as a chain, with each element linked to and supporting the next. The elements are: Identification, Ostracism, Confiscation, Concentration, and Annihilation; each element gets its own chapter as Miller walks us through, “the process by which society can destroy an ordinary group of people.” The ordinary people selected for destruction? Drug users, or at least the ones who fall into a constantly expanding sub-category based on the drugs they use; a group of people so indistinguishable from the rest of the population that the only definitive way to identify them is to extract and analyze bodily fluids. The ‘How’ and ‘Why’ of the process are identified and elaborated upon throughout the course of the book.


Comparing the War on Drugs (a “war on drug users”) to the Nazi persecution of the Jews may seem outlandish at first glance, but Miller’s methodical dissection of the policies and practices utilized by the American and Nazi regimes whittles away doubt that the same process of destruction underlies both situations. Particularly astonishing is how many legal measures adopted by the US to fight the War on Drugs were condemned as crimes against humanity at the Nuremburg Tribunals! Some of the practices deemed unjust are major elements of US drug policy, such as: civil asset forfeiture (no conviction or charge necessary), exempting police from liability for illegal acts, elimination of judges’ independence by mandatory sentencing (Starting with US Sentencing Act of 1984), prearrangement of sentences between judges and prosecutors (prosecutor fine tunes indictment and judge is forced to sentence under Sentencing Act), police enhancement of judicial power, and so on. Not only does Miller explain the impact of these and other legal processes, he also details their origins and how it all came together to comprise the drug war as we recognize it today. The book is worth it for the instructive lessons on the formation of American drug laws alone, aside from the wealth of other information provided (including the substantial bibliography).


The individual stories used to illustrate the execution of each legal technique, drawn from newspapers and court documents, are heartbreaking. One example is the case in which undercover agents bought cocaine from a man in his living room while a plumber was working on the kitchen drain. Both the plumber and the owner were arrested, and though both insisted that the plumber had nothing to do with the drug transaction, he was charged with conspiracy and received a 15-year sentence. In another case, a Florida man served a year in prison for a 1985 marijuana cultivation offense and was released back into the community. In 1991 the man was charged with violating federal marijuana conspiracy law on the basis of the 1985 warrant and received a mandatory life sentence. Many of the Supreme Court rulings discussed are equally sickening, all the more so because of the precedents they set. Instances pertaining to drug raids, civil asset forfeiture, and other actions taken by governmental entities are just as appalling. If you can’t see the injustice inherent to many of the legal measures discussed, the specific examples and anecdotes provided will help make for a clearer picture.


The scariest portion of the book, however, is when Miller discusses the expansions of government power (including, specifically, the president’s) that occurred during the internment of Japanese-Americans and paved the way for the declaration of the War on Drugs and introduction of the scheduling system. That it is unknown to what extent these powers could be employed (such as declaring a permanent national state of emergency) makes them all the more ominous. Some of the proposals (and occasionally previously employed policies) discussed in the Annihilation chapter are chilling, as is the language of some former govt. officials in discussing drug users (such as drug czar Bennett declaring that no trial is ethically required before killing suspected drug dealers). While not the main focus of the book, Miller reminds us where the destruction process ends, and that the initial instigators of persecution against the Jews in Germany and their successors didn’t even consider destruction of the Jews as possible, only for bureaucratic thrust and a state of war to make it a reality. Ordinary people perpetrated the crimes; ordinary people sat by and did nothing. The key lesson here is that active hatred of the masses is not necessary for mass-murder to occur. Indifference is sufficient. As Hillberg said, “Total integration requires complete acceptance. So long as that acceptance is withheld from a group of people, those people will live more or less peacefully in a state of equilibrium between ultimate incorporation and final annihilation.”


I haven’t summarized the book’s analysis anywhere near well enough, but I’m afraid there just isn’t the space and time to do so. Suffice it to say that the overall text is much more comprehensive than my review! I had a few minor quibbles with the book, but nothing substantial enough to hinder its enjoyment and instructive value. Some topics are repeated towards the end of the book, and it begins to feel less structured towards the end. This is most likely due to Miller laying out most everything towards the beginning of the book, seeing as how most of it is tied together, and covering it so thoroughly. The Annihilation section is disjointed at times, due to Miller only being able to discuss portents suggesting its possibility. I also feel that some areas could have been elaborated upon, and that it would have been helpful for him to pull back to the big picture at various times in the text when he relentlessly delves into details for too long. On the whole though, the analysis is relatively easy to understand and follow, a mountain of evidence supports the various claims, and the overall presentation is engaging. The book deconstructs the drug war, exposing its bureaucratic-judicial framework and the political / nationalistic considerations underlying its prosecution. Some specifics discussed in the book may be dated since it’s over a decade old, but unfortunately not enough are. As such, this book is still as important and relevant as ever, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the drug war / drug policy.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Excellent book review Baj