DrugLord takes inspiration from many sources. But while everybody knows many films and serials that talk about cartels and drugs, here I want to recommend some books that inspired numerous Bullet Cards and gave me insights on the deeper levels of the issue. Have you read them? Let me know what you think!
First, the official sources:
International Narcotics Control Strategy Report – vol I – Drugs and chemical
International Narcotics Control Strategy Report – vol II – Money Laundering and financial crimes
There aren’t many public sources as detailed as these: the first will give you a view on the “production” side; the second, perhaps more important, shows how these oceanic amounts of money are laundered and put back in the legit economy. Cutting that link would have a dramatic effect… but nobody wants that, am I right?
Just remember how biased are these sources.
Some important essays
Tom Wainwright: Narconomics: – How to run a drug cartel.
Amazing, a thoroughly researched essay on the marketing and financing schemes of the drug cartels. A must read for economy geeks; because you can’t run a Cartel by using only guns…
Lukasz Kamienski Shooting Up – A short history of drugs and war
A must-read for people interested in warfare. This book takes a long, circumstantiated look at how intoxicants changed the course of wars during history: from the opium to its modern derivatives, to the surge in amphetamines as performance enhancers. The author is a nice lad too: you can reach him on Academia.org.
Vanda Felbab-Brown: Shooting Up – Counterinsurgency and the War on Drugs
From where do the insurgent groups take their money? You bet it’s drugs. A thorough analysis of the links between paramilitary groups — including Peru’s Shining Path, the FARC in Colombia, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, but also groups in Northern Ireland, Turkey, and Burma — and the illicit markets. Beware: some opinions are clearly biased.
Roberto Saviano: Zero zero zero
Some Italian readers may frown upon this: Saviano gained immense popularity with his first book (Gomorra) which also caused him to become a target of Camorra, the powerful Naples-based international gang. At the beginning, the guy was undoubtedly considered a hero, but with time some hyper-PC neo-liberal political statements, his baroque style, accusations of plagiarism… and an unwise use of social that showed signs of an (understandable) nervous breakdown… took him away from public sympathy. That being said, Zero Zero Zero is a well-documented reportage on international cocaine trade, very good as an introduction to the topic.
Some inspiring novels
Bryce Courtenay: Smokey Joe’s Cafe
The story of a group of Australian Vietnam veterans, abandoned by the State without healthcare. Their life, ruined by PTSD and long-term effects of napalm and agent orange, changes when they decide to organize and produce and sell marijuana for the underground market. Funny, engaging, and deep.
William Burroughs: The Naked Lunch
The paranoid story of a writer who injects himself with “the yellow powder”, an insecticide that puts him in contact with an alien conspiracy of evil typewriters… A masterpiece of degeneracy that inspired a Cronenberg film. Absolutely not advised if you plan to take LSD.
William Burroughs: Junkie
The reportage of Burroughs’ life and descent into addiction. Interesting insight into the experiences that inspired him to write The Naked Lunch.
Tom Robbins: Villa Incognito
Again a book about ‘Nam veterans that start their own drug-smuggling group, with amazing romanesque and fantasy mindfucks that only Tom Robbins’ mind could invent. Light reading, deep illuminations – and some really moving insights about the legalization of drugs in medicine.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: News of a kidnapping
From the Nobel prize winner Marquez, an amazing reportage about the last move of Pablo Escobar facing deportation in the United States: kidnapping ten family members of the Colombian élite in the desperate attempt to remain the one and only king of Colombian underground.
Elemire Zolla: Il dio dell’ebbrezza
A fundamental anthology of the best modern prose and poetry about the altered state of mind. A mystical take on drug use – and abuse, useful to get a glimpse of the mindfucks of many great writers of the western canon. Read this, and you’ll probably find yourself searching for the opera omnia of Nietszche, Castaneda, Huxley, Bulgakov, and many others.
Albert Hoffman: LSD, Mein Sorgenkind <3
The first-hand testimony from the father of LSD. From his own experience and anecdotes to his meetings with the highest minds of the century, you’ll read not a chemist, but an intellectual the likes of which are difficult to find in this day and age. Absolutely recommended.
Aldous Huxley: A brave new world
This dystopian novel will warn you about the dark side of hedonism. There’s no denying that drugs can make you feel good, there’s no denying that its misuse can ruin people and societies. Reading this book is the perfect vaccination against moral manicheism: drugs do not automatically help the freedom cause; and worse, they can be used as tools of social control (think about Xanax, or Ritalin). This great writer (with a lot of experience in the matter) offers us the most powerful warning: without a surge in collective consciousness – to which DrugLord would like to offer its small contribution – the evolution of our society will go on to the direst possible end.