Drug Trade: Philippe Bourgois

Crack users range from the Wall Street stockbroker to a homeless person living in Central Park, but by and large this evil drug called crack had its biggest impact on New York’s inner city minority population. A New York doctor, Dr. Mark Gold who is the person who set up and helps run the not for profit organization called 800-COCAINE, a hotline set up to help addicts and perspective users answer questions about the drug and also offers counseling and drug intervention services; suggested that his findings showed that, “occasional users of crack quickly increased, the amount and frequency of crack use until total dependency was achieved.” Men and women who were once law abiding citizens and honest people were now robbing and stealing to pay for the drug, and many who once enjoyed good health were now suffering from a variety of physical and mental aliments springing from their cocaine abuse. Crack brings along with its amazing high, some ominous dangers. Dr. Robert Maslansky is the director of New York City’s Bellevue Hospital

In Punished: policing the lives of Black and Latino by Victor Rios Oakland boys are studied in an ethnography. The purpose of the ethnography was to examine the how the boys interacted with themselves, the education system and the justice system. The purpose of this essay is to review what Rios has witnessed and recorded, in his book, and look through the lens of different sociological theories and theorists. These Theories and theorists Rios himself used when describing the behavior.

Contributing to these drug issues throughout America are multiple street gangs, drug cartels and drug lords. These groups to transport illegal drugs into America, to sell them illegally on the streets, for a very hefty profit. High crime profiled states and cities such as, New York, Baltimore, Maryland, District of Columbia, and Chicago host some of America’s most notorious gangs, cartels, and drug lords. The purpose of this research paper is to analyze the life of a notorious Baltimore drug lord, by the name of Anthony Ayeni Jones, and how a life of drugs effected his personal life, caused criminal actions, and resulted in court trials and a life sentence in prison.

Next the Anti- Drug Abuse Act of 1986 is discussed, because this act is responsible for the harsh penalty for trafficking cocaine, which is a crime African Americans are much more likely to be convicted of. This act passed in 1986 with the support of two- thirds of the African Americans in Congress, because they felt it was justified and it was supported by the community who was suffering from a drug trafficking problem. Fortner’s point is then brought in, that it was possible to be skeptical of the drug war, while also believing that black lives matter.

1. Chapter three, Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?, expresses an intriguing thought by authors, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. The Freakonomics authors follow a courageous man, Sudhir Venkatesh, a student at the University of Chicago, in his effort to understand and research the mysterious drug dealing business. Venkatesh first approached dangerous gangs and dealers in Chicago with a simple survey to learn more about them. After stumbling upon a branch of the “Black Gangster Disciple Nation”, Venkatesh wanted to take his study further. J.T., this specific branches leader, was interested in Venkatesh’s survey and initiated him as a spectator to his group. Venkatesh was integrated with this group for six years an acquired an immense amount of information on drug and gang groups. Thankfully, J.T. kept documents on the group 's wages. By looking at these books, Venkatesh was able to identify the hierarchy of a typical drug cartel. Which is where the main question of chapter is answered. Only the people on the top of the system made good money, for example, J.T. Contrary to popular belief, lower jobs of this business like foot soldiers make only $3.30 an hour, below minimum wage. Despite the fact that the foot soldiers are the ones who physically put their life on the lines. This style is compared to major corporations such as McDonald 's for a more context comparison. However, the people that are

The third factor is the expansion and contraction of the urban crack market (Rosenfeld, 2011). Homicides and robberies increased in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, this was attributable to the rise of killings and delinquency of juveniles and young people under the age of 24 (Rosenfeld, 2011). The killings were due to the sudden rise of urban crack markets and the growing use of handguns which became a way of life for those involved. Since cocaine was very expensive and crack was fairly easy to make and cheaper to buy, it became the drug to sell for the common street dealer. In essence, as older dealers were being incarcerated, violence among the younger inner city drug dealers increased, younger dealers on the streets were more apt to be quicker on the draw than their older predecessors (Rosenfeld, 2011).

Sudhir Vankatesh’s account of his experience with a local gang during his early graduate years at the University of Chicago greatly surprised me. The title immediately caught my attention mainly because gangs are something people consistently talk about, but never truly discuss what they do or how they act. The book follows this rogue sociologist’s journey for the greater part of a decade, alongside JT, the leader of one of the most powerful crack dealing gangs in Chicago. His odd friendship with this shockingly charismatic criminal create the basis for an ethically questionable story. Venkatesh takes this opportunity to study the gang and the projects (Robert Taylor Homes) and the relationship between the gangsters and the local tenants.

Throughout the book, "Smack", Eric Schneider discusses the role that social setting played in the development of illegal subcultures in New York City following World War II (Schneider, p. 17). As Alison Hibner states, learning social setting is critical to the understanding of how certain spaces and geographic areas allowed the drug subculture to thrive and continue for many years following the war. The transformation from marijuana-smoking to the heroin-abusing after World War II was for the most part, witnessed at jazz clubs, after hours bars and cafeterias by drug-dealers, musicians, pimps and hookers and hence, led to a small subculture that consisted of these drug addicts and users (Schneider, p. 17).

Philipe Bourgois is an anthropologist who moved his family to spend years interacting with and learning from Spanish Harlem’s crack dealers in order to write the book In Search of Respect. Over his experience he made friends, discovered horrible realities, and gain context towards a lot of pain and struggling that is common in poor communities. After his experience, he came to the conclusion that “Given the dimensions of structural oppression in the United States, it is atheoretical to expect isolated policy initiatives, or even short-term political reforms, to remedy the plight of the poor in U.S. urban centers in the short or medium term (318).” After explaining Bourgois’ intended meaning in his statement, I plan to argue that Bourgois is

Bourgois makes it clear in the introduction that the focus of the book is not about drugs or crack, nor is it focusing on whether American society is facing a “drug problem”, rather it is about who is using these illegal substances, how they go about using them, and why they are using them. He focuses on societal influence, and the circumstances that he believes leads people in these types of communities to enter the underground economy and abuse harmful substances. An emphasis is placed on history concerning the Puerto Rican culture early on in the book since East Harlem is heavily populated with people of Hispanic decent. Many people who immigrated to the U.S. from Puerto Rico in the 1940s and 50s stared off in the manufacturing industry (Bourgois 1995: 51). The economy then went through a dramatic change, and jobs began to leave the country, due to the fact that labor was cheaper in other nations, like China. Due to these changes, within a twenty-year period from 1967 and onwards, nearly half a million people lost their manufacturing jobs, and the unemployment rate soared (Bourgois 1995: 51). The effects of these economic

In a country of struggling economies, many have viewed the drug trade as one South American’ s most successful businesses. Latin America 's drug trafficking industry has been depicted in United States popular culture through motion pictures such as Scarface and Traffic. The purpose of my research is to take away society’s perception of what Hollywood has depicted drug trade to be and bring out what narcotics trafficking really is, as well as trying to coincide with the motivations of those people who take part in this. I will present the origins of drug trafficking, case studies regarding two countries (Mexico and Colombia), as well as the overall effects of the business on South America and United States. Drug Trafficking in South America starts in the early 19th century.

Drug trafficking first started to show itself in Latin America during the years from the 1960s to 1970s, when the use of drugs began to become more popular throughout the youth of this period (“Crandal”). During this time, the people in these exporting countries started to see a large growth in the revenues brought upon by the trafficking, and rural communities began to supply more and more drugs, beginning with Marijuana, but eventually becoming a much larger exporter of cocaine(“Drug Trafficking”). Cocaine began to seem like the perfect drug to traffic

1. The author of the article might have simply overlooked this movement in his work. One of the points for missing this aspect is based on the idea that the countercultures have only been represented as small groups and their activities can be disregarded. However, it is essentially important to consider even the influence of the minorities while such influences might have led to immense changes in the world-views of the people. At the same time, the drug movement has not had such an immense impact on the flow of the political processes to be included in the article. While the article deals with the political aspect of the history, the drug movement influenced the social and cultural aspects more. The political impact of this movement was not

The Opium Dealer was the first to speak. All knew he was a man of great physique Since he fought in the war of Mozambique As well as ‘gainst the Sheikhs and Sikhs. He learned the savages and how they thought: He had the Maxim gun, and they had not.

Boston is being threatened by the increasing use of drug. The number of arrests related to drugs is continuously on the rise. It also implies a huge inestimable underground ‘black market’ of drugs running through the city. Boston’s Mayor Raymond Flynn is looking to take the drug problem head-on. He enforced various ‘anti-drug’ and ‘drug-education’ programmes but quick and substantial profits were increasing drug-trafficking and attracting illegal drug dealers. This time Mayors policy advisor Neil Sullivan and Marc Zegan initiated a research program to create a plan to ‘de-market’ the drug in Boston. Harvard Business School’s four member field study group came up with a research design and analysis.