From Library Journal
Independent researcher Miller continues the argument he began in The Case for Legalizing Drugs (LJ 4/15/91). Drawing on his latest book, Nazi Justiz (Praeger, 1995), he makes an extended analogy between Germany repressing the Jews and America repressing drug users. In chapters on identification, ostracism, confiscation, concentration, and annihilation, he shows that democracy, privacy, and family life can be lost in our society just as they were when these policies were applied to the Jews. Because of "bureaucratic thrust," the criminalization aimed at one group consumes the entire society. In contrast, Miller thinks drug use is normal and should be regarded as such; he marshals convincing evidence that it can be mature and responsible. If drugs are abused, he does not think criminalization or medical force are solutions, any more than they would be solutions to unemployment. Although many will find Miller's case overstated, it is thoughtful and thought-provoking. Recommended for most libraries.?Janice Dunham, John Jay Coll. Lib., New York
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
?Drug Warriors and Their Prey is a rich with insights into the growth of state power-. Of all of these books, Millers is the most jarring, the most insightful, and the most important.?-Newsbrief
?Even those disturbed by the "war on drugs" will find Richard Miller's latest work shocking--like being in a capsizing boat. For those who don't like the term "war on drugs" this book gives the concept a fresh meaning. For those who argue, such as Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY), that a "war on drugs" has never been fought, Miller pulls together a vast array of circumstances to make the case that "war" may be too polite a term to describe what is happening in our society....Drug Warriors and Their Prey is rich with insights into the growth of state power--how it grows, how arguments are framed for its expansion, and the careful identification of targets against which to exercise that power.?-Newsbriefs
?Miller succeeds in revealing a bureaucracy run dangerously amok in what he and a growing chorus of other respected voices believe is a quasi-religious and unwinnable war whose time is past.?-Kansas City Star
?Using chain-of-destruction analysis based on Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of European Jews, Miller argues that the drug war has moved from identification through ostracism and confiscation and that concentration and annihilation are currently 'in "prototype" stage.' Before readers conclude that Miller's belief that 'the war on drug users masks a war on democracy' is extreme, they may wish to consider the disturbing evidence he amasses. A powerful, passionate argument that the war on drugs serves only authoritarians' interests.?-Booklist
"Drug Warriors and Their Prey is a rich with insights into the growth of state power-. Of all of these books, Millers is the most jarring, the most insightful, and the most important."-Newsbrief
"Miller succeeds in revealing a bureaucracy run dangerously amok in what he and a growing chorus of other respected voices believe is a quasi-religious and unwinnable war whose time is past."-Kansas City Star
"Using chain-of-destruction analysis based on Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of European Jews, Miller argues that the drug war has moved from identification through ostracism and confiscation and that concentration and annihilation are currently 'in "prototype" stage.' Before readers conclude that Miller's belief that 'the war on drug users masks a war on democracy' is extreme, they may wish to consider the disturbing evidence he amasses. A powerful, passionate argument that the war on drugs serves only authoritarians' interests."-Booklist
"Even those disturbed by the "war on drugs" will find Richard Miller's latest work shocking--like being in a capsizing boat. For those who don't like the term "war on drugs" this book gives the concept a fresh meaning. For those who argue, such as Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY), that a "war on drugs" has never been fought, Miller pulls together a vast array of circumstances to make the case that "war" may be too polite a term to describe what is happening in our society....Drug Warriors and Their Prey is rich with insights into the growth of state power--how it grows, how arguments are framed for its expansion, and the careful identification of targets against which to exercise that power."-Newsbriefs
From the Back Cover
The war on drugs is a war on ordinary people. Using that premise, historian Richard Lawrence Miller analyzes America's drug war with a passion seldom encountered in scholarly writing. Miller presents numerous examples of drug law enforcement gone amok, as police and courts threaten the happiness, property, and even lives of victims - some of whom are never charged with a drug crime, let alone convicted of one. Miller not only argues that criminal justice zealots are harming the democracy they are sworn to protect, but that authoritarians unfriendly to democracy are stoking public fear in order to convince citizens to relinquish traditional legal rights. Those are the very rights that thwart implementation of an agenda of social control through government power. Miller contends that an imaginary "drug crisis" has been manufactured by authoritarians in order to mask their war on democracy. He not only examines numerous civil rights sacrificed in the name of drugs, but demonstrates how their loss harms ordinary Americans in their everyday lives. Showing how the war on drug users fits into a destruction process that can lead to mass murder, Miller calls for an end to the war before it proceeds deeper into the destruction process.
About the Author
RICHARD LAWRENCE MILLER is an independent scholar. He is the author of Heritage of Fear: Illusion and Reality in the Cold War (1988), Truman: The Rise to Power (1985), The Case for Legalizing Drugs (Praeger, 1991), and the recently published Nazi Justiz: Law of the Holocaust (Praeger, 1995).
