Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts

Thursday, March 15, 2012

so happy: Books are a Necessity.


Being a super cutie pie will get you far in life. However, at some point you will want something that requires a little extra effort. This is where your charming personality comes into the equation. It’s hard to say no to a cutie pie. It is even harder to say no to a cutie pie who has something smart to say. What this means for you is that you need something that doesn’t involve reality television or magazines to talk about.  So, either download the Kindle app or take a trip to the bookstore. Buy a book and read it. Repeat once a month and you’ll have a plethora of knowledge to charm your way though any conversation.

So skinny. So rich. So happy.
xx
Veida

Monday, February 2, 2009

Cocaine Addiction Books: A Cultural History of Cocaine


Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Praised as a wonder drug by doctors throughout Europe and the United States upon its discovery nearly 150 years ago, perceptions of cocaine have now come full circle. A prime target of narcotics agencies and governments across the globe, coke has become the crown jewel of the drug trade. Despite the widespread panic surrounding its effects and highly addictive quality, as well as massive campaigns by the U.S. government to stop its importation, coke is still readily available and maintains its street credibility as a champagne drug, associated with high-living, high-rolling lifestyles.

Millions of South Americans have, for centuries, chewed coca leaves (the raw product from which cocaine is derived), in order to produce a mild high, not unlike caffeine. The plant was so revered by the Incas that they referred to it as the "food of the gods;" and in modern societies, the coca plant has long been used in the recipe for popular soft drinks like Coca-Cola. So what has led to the modern fervor over the plant's by-product cocaine? Tracing a history that goes back hundreds of years, author Tim Madge examines the long, complicated, and controversial history of cocaine, and its parent-the coca plant.

See All Editorial Reviews




Crack Cocaine and the Experience of African American Women: A Statistical Study of Positive Treatment Outcomes

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Dr. Okagbue-Reaves has presented a seminal study in drug treatment that is imperative reading for practitioners working with African American women drug addicts. This study identified treatment outcomes for African American women given the treatment systems utilized and services they received. Not only does the study have implications for practice and policy but breaks the ground for future research in the field of chemical dependency treatment for women."

- Dr. John Gunther Director of the School of Social Work (retired) Missouri State University "Dr. Reaves, in this landmark research study, gives us renewed hope that by looking carefully at data on a national basis, we can identify significant factors related to recovery for a population that has often been viewed as one of the most difficult to successfully treat for a variety of reasons - African American women addicted to crack cocaine." - Professor Marilyn Wedenoja School of Social Work Eastern Michigan University "This study challenges the treatment arena to recognize that with an increase in services, consistency in time spent in treatment, and greater availability of long-term residential treatment, African American women can achieve positive outcomes." - Professor Sylvia Simms Grey School of Social Work Eastern Michigan University"

Product Description
Presenting analysis of treatment experiences and outcomes of African American women undergoing substance abuse treatment for crack cocaine, this study attempts to identify factors that contribute to their successful recovery as defined by completion of treatment and substance abstinence one-year post treatment.

See All Editorial Reviews

The War on Drugs III: The Continuing Saga of the Mysteries and Miseries of Intoxication, Addiction, Crime, and Public Policy

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Written by a leading researcher and writer in the field of alcohol and drug studies, this book presents a series of perspectives and reflections on the worlds of drug taking and drug seeking. This highly readable book takes a candid look at the world of drug and alcohol use, abuse and control. The author presents both sides of major issues, the history and patterns of abuse, and coverage of the major drugs (e.g. heroin, cocaine, crack, marijuana, amphetamines, hallucinogens, and club drugs). For anyone with an interest in drug history, abuse, and policies.


From the Back Cover
Written by a leading researcher and writer in the field of alcohol and drug studies, this book presents a series of perspectives and reflections on the worlds of drug taking and drug seeking. This highly readable book takes a candid look at the world of drug and alcohol use, abuse and control. The author presents both sides of major issues, the history and patterns of abuse, and coverage of the major drugs (e.g. heroin, cocaine, crack, marijuana, amphetamines, hallucinogens, and club drugs). For anyone with an interest in drug history, abuse, and policies. See All Editorial Reviews


The American Pipe Dream: Crack, Cocaine, and the Inner City

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This one-of-a-kind book focuses on the impact of crack on inner-city populations, targeting such issues/groups as crime, women, the homeless, HIV, race/ethnicity, and juveniles.


See All Editorial Reviews

Cocaie Addiction Books: The Street Game & Crack Cocaine

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
She learned that there was a “game” being played on the streets of our nation and took that game to a whole new level. Like no other, she turned the town’s dealers and smokers upside down with her remarkable wisdom. Everyone she came across learned from her.


She changed the way the street game is looked at completely. She needed the street players to fulfill the knowledge of her crack cocaine addiction and recovery process. See All Editorial Reviews


Sunday, February 1, 2009

Cocaine and Methamphetamine Addiction: Treatment, Recovery, and Relapse Prevention

Editorial Reviews

A practical guide to understanding and overcoming addiction to cocaine and meth.


Two experienced addiction treatment professionals present a practice-oriented approach to working with addicted individuals. Specific strategies are brought to life with case examples. Key issues are addressed, including how to approach clients about their drug use, when and how to involve family members, and how to prevent relapse. See All Editorial Reviews




Therapy manuals for drug addiction: A cognitive Behavioral Approach - Treating cocaine addiction

Therapy manuals for drug addiction:
A cognitive Behavioral Approach - Treating cocaine addiction


See All Editorial Reviews

Breaking the Chains of Cocaine: Black Male Addiction and Recovery

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This book asks and reviews the vicious stages of cocaine dependency? Answers to many probing questions are given from an African frame of reference.


See All Editorial Reviews



A New Prescription for Addiction: The Gracer Comprehensive Method for Treating Addiction to Alcohol, Cocaine, Meth, Prescription Drugs


Editorial Reviews

Product Description
For the first time, a doctor has developed a treatment program especially for 'hidden' addicts - people whose lives look just fine on the surface, but who are secretly driven by stress into addictive, destructive behaviors. Until now, many of these people have been alone in their struggle, their addictions undetected by friends, colleagues, even sometimes family. Now this breakthrough program treats both hidden substance abuse problems and their underlying causes, without unnecessarily stigmatizing these otherwise highly-functioning people. Richard Gracer, MD, is the founder and director of Gracer Medical Group, which has been holistically treating patients with complex health issues since 1979.

In 2005, he launched Gracer Behavioural Health Services specifically to treat addiction, alcoholism, and other stress-related mental health issues. He has pioneered a revolutionary 5-step treatment protocol that addresses substance abuse cravings and their underlying causes through intensive short-term treatment across several disciplines. It uses several new drugs - some very recently approved by the FDA - that promise to revolutionize the treatment of addictions, as well as a comprehensive support system to address the many challenges addicts face. See All Editorial Reviews

Addiction-Free--Naturally: Liberating Yourself from Tobacco, Caffeine, Sugar, Alcohol, Prescription Drugs, Cocaine, and Narcotics


Editorial Reviews

Review
. . . this book offers a variety of safe, natural and effective techniques for beating addiction. -- Earth Star, December/January 2002

How exciting to find an herb book that can really make a difference in someone's life. -- American Herb Association, Vol. 16:4

". . . this book offers a variety of safe, natural and effective techniques for beating addiction."
(Earth Star, December/January 2002 )

"This book is especially useful for gaining a better understanding of your addiction, or addictions in general, and for providing ideas for healing your addiction, using over 20 modalities. I would recommend this book as an initial step in making the commitment to seek help regarding your addiction."
See All Editorial Reviews



Cocaine Addiction: A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade


Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Snowblind is an all-out, nonstop, and now classic look at the cocaine trade through the eyes of smuggler Zachary Swan. In a brief Roman-candle career, Swan served an elegant clientele, traveling between Bogota and the nightclubs of New York, inventing intricate scams to outmaneuver the feds. Creating diversions that were characteristically baroque, surviving on ingenuity and idiot's luck, he discovered in the process a hip, dangerous, high-velocity world that Robert Sabbag evokes with extraordinary power and humor.


From the Back Cover
"A flat-out ballbuster. It moves like a threshing machine with a fuel tank full of ether. . . . Sabbag is a whip-song writer."-Hunter S. Thompson

Snowblind is an all-out, nonstop, and now-classic look at the cocaine trade through the eyes of smuggler Zachary Swan. In a brief, Roman-candle career, Swan served an elegant clientele, traveling between Bogota and the nightclubs of New York, inventing intricate scams to outmaneuver the feds. Creating diversions that were characteristically baroque, surviving on ingenuity and idiot's luck, he discovered in the process a hip, dangerous, high-velocity world that Robert Sabbag evokes with extraordinary power and humor.

"One of the best books about drugs ever written."-Robert Stone

"One of the first books about the cocaine trade and it is still among the best."-Norman Mailer

"An extremely rare cut of dry wit, poetry, rock-hard fact and relentless insight."-Rolling Ston

"A triumphant piece of reporting."-The New Yorker

"A witty, intelligent, fiercely stylish, drug-induced exemplary tale."-Los Angeles Times .

See All Editorial Reviews





Powderburns: Cocaine, Contras & the Drug War


Powderburns: Cocaine, Contras & the Drug War



Cocaine Addiction: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Those familiar with the travesty of justice that led to multiple bogus drug arrests in the small Texas town of Tulia only from newspaper accounts will be outraged anew at this eye-opening narrative that bears comparison to such courtroom and litigation classics as A Civil Action. This devastating indictment of the toll taken by the war on drugs, viewed through the prism of one small community, is a masterpiece of true crime writing. Award-winning reporter Blakeslee broke the story for the Texas Observer in 2000 and has produced a definitive account, deftly weaving the history of the growth and decline of Tulia with the stories of those caught up in the racist frame by narcotics officer Tom Coleman.

The defendants, their families and their attorneys come across as three-dimensional individuals, consistently engaging the reader despite the wealth of details and the intricacies of the appellate process. Vanita Gupta, the young defense lawyer fresh from law school who made the NAACP Legal Defense Fund take notice with her dedication, is especially memorable. As with Errol Morris's film exposing corrupt Texas law-enforcement, The Thin Blue Line, this haunting work will leave many wondering how many other Tulias there are out there.

From The Washington Post
Iconoclastic lawyers who challenge the deeply entrenched, local powers-that-be relish the rare occasions when they prevail. For Jeff Blackburn, an Amarillo, Tex., attorney who is one of the heroes of Nate Blakeslee's thoroughly reported and superbly written new book, such an opportunity came late one night in 2003. Recalcitrant prosecutors had finally agreed to drop fraudulent drug charges brought against some three dozen defendants, most of whom were black. As Blackburn exultantly left the county courthouse, he headed for a nearby centennial monument whose self-congratulatory inscription (lauding the county's principles) he loathed. As Blakeslee recounts, Blackburn "unzipped his pants and began urinating on it" until the headlights of an approaching car brought an abrupt end to his private victory celebration.

Those false drug prosecutions were the handiwork of Tom Coleman, an undercover white narcotics officer who claimed to have made more than 100 purchases of powdered cocaine during an 18-month period in 1998-99 from about 40 different residents of Tulia, a small and relatively poor town in the north Texas panhandle. Blakeslee describes Coleman as "a scruffy, long-haired, unsavory-looking character . . . in a black leather jacket who called himself T.J. Dawson and claimed to be a construction contractor living ten miles up the interstate." Coleman worked for a regional anti-drug task force based in Amarillo, which had hired him largely because of his late father's stellar law-enforcement record.

Coleman's undercover work in Tulia went almost wholly unsupervised by Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart and local District Attorney Terry McEachern, as well as by the task force. Early one morning in July 1999, though, local law enforcement mobilized all its troops to execute the surprise arrests of Coleman's dozens of suspects. None of the defendants was found in possession of any drugs, but many of them had briefly shared drugs -- or used drugs -- with Coleman. "I smoked rock with that man," former high school sports star Donnie Smith exclaimed to the men in his holding pen. Four or five others admitted they had too.

"You niggers quit sellin' them drugs," Coleman yelled at the incarcerated suspects that day, as they later recounted the episode to Blakeslee. Racial animus was not the only serious problem marring the prosecutions. Local attorneys were appointed to represent defendants who could not afford private counsel, but Texas's slapdash system of indigent defense often resulted in "completely ineffective" lawyers offering only pro forma representation. Several of the Tulia defendants were quickly convicted and imprisoned in just such a fashion before Donnie Smith's highly experienced attorney, Tom Hamilton (himself a former district attorney), bluntly challenged McEachern.
See All Editorial Reviews




Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Andean Cocaine is an important intellectual achievement. Gootenberg uses a fluent narrative and a new and sophisticated interpretation to discuss the link between local and global events and to explain the roles played by unequal actors and institutions. A first-class book."— Marcos Cueto, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima, Peru


Product Description
Illuminating a hidden and fascinating chapter in the history of globalization, Paul Gootenberg chronicles the rise of one of the most spectacular and now illegal Latin American exports: cocaine.

Gootenberg traces cocaine's history from its origins as a medical commodity in the nineteenth century to its repression during the early twentieth century and its dramatic reemergence as an illicit good after World War II. Connecting the story of the drug's transformations is a host of people, products, and processes: Sigmund Freud, Coca-Cola, and Pablo Escobar all make appearances, exemplifying the global influences that have shaped the history of cocaine. But Gootenberg decenters the familiar story to uncover the roles played by hitherto obscure but vital Andean actors as well--for example, the Peruvian pharmacist who developed the techniques for refining cocaine on an industrial scale and the creators of the original drug-smuggling networks that decades later would be taken over by Colombian traffickers. See All Editorial Reviews


Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Updated edition


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This important, explosive report forcefully argues that the "war on drugs" is largely a sham, as the U.S. government is one of the world's largest drug pushers. The authors unearth close links between the CIA and Latin American drug networks which provide U.S. covert operations with financing, political leverage and intelligence. CIA-protected Panamian ruler Manuel Noriega supplied drugs, pilots and banking services to Honduran and Costa Rican cocaine smugglers who were partners in Reagan's support program for Nicaragua's Contras. Together, Honduran and Costa Rican traffickers supplied one-third of the cocaine smuggled into the U.S. in the 1980s, according to the authors. The Bush administration showers hundreds of millions of dollars on Latin American military elites in Guatemala, Colombia, etc. to enlist them in the "war on drugs."

In so doing, charge the authors, the U.S. risks empowering the very forces that protect drug-pushing crime syndicates. The U.S. also gave covert aid to Afghan guerrillas who smuggled drugs in concert with Pakistan's military--an operation that produced half of the heroin consumed in the U.S. during the 1980s. Scott, a professor at UC-Berkeley, and San Francisco Chronicle economics editor Marshall call for immediate political action to end Washington's complicity. Their heavily documented book deserves a wide audience.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Coauthor Marshall's recent Drug Wars ( LJ 2/15/91) shows how Washington overlooks or supports drug trafficking as part of its efforts to thwart Third World communism around the world. This new book explores in detail the tangled connection between the Nicaraguan Contras, U.S. support for them, and drugs. Marshall and Scott argue that the United States might actually have furthered the flow of cocaine from Central America to the States by colluding with anti-Sandinista forces. Government intimidation of witnesses, a complacent Congress, and timid media have served to keep this a quiet story. Extensive interviews, government records, and secondary sources (enough, in fact, to produce over 60 pages of cited sources), are used to document in great detail how the war on communism took precedence over the war on drugs. An authoritiative account of a crucial but underpublicized issue.
- Cathy Seitz Whit aker, Univ. of Pittsburgh Lib.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. See All Editorial Reviews


Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography


Editorial Reviews

Cocaine, writes filmmaker Dominic Streatfeild, "is not some evil spawn of Satan but simply a commodity." Like other commodities, cocaine has a history. When the Spanish conquistadors came to South America and observed that Indians who chewed the leaves of Erythroxylon coca could, it seemed, march over the tallest mountain or through the densest forest for days on end, they knew they were onto something. The newcomers took to growing coca themselves, and in time their product found an audience outside the continent, with users such as Sigmund Freud, Ernest Shackleton (who "took Forced March cocaine tablets to Antarctica in 1909 for the energy boost they gave"), Duke Ellington, and, eventually, half of Hollywood to testify to its powers.

Streatfeild's appropriately rapid narrative takes in such key moments and players as "the year of cocaine" 1969, when the film Easy Rider reintroduced the drug to American popular culture, and George Jung, whose exploits are chronicled in Ted Demme's film Blow, to create a portrait of the drug that ranges over centuries. Though he supports legalization, Streatfeild acknowledges the evil and corruption surrounding the trade. Drawing lessons from history, he also suggests the possibility that "cocaine will fizzle out in the year 2015 the way it did in the early twentieth century." At the close of this absorbing book, he adds, "It deserves to." --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Boil off Streatfeild's informal tone a mix of self-deprecation and gonzo-journalist swagger and what's left is a fascinating and richly detailed story of the world's most notorious drug and an illicit $92-billion-a-year industry. Streatfeild, a British documentary film producer, visits its every outpost, from Bronx crack houses and Amazonian coca plantations to Bolivian prisons and the compounds of South American drug lords. He launches the story with a history of the coca leaf and its prominent place in both ancient and contemporary consciousness, tackling race, poverty, class, violence, mythology and xenophobia as seen through the prism of cocaine. There are countless strands to the story, and Streatfeild follows every one: the rise of the Colombian cartels, government collusion with traffickers, the crack phenomenon, media hype, the U.S. war on drugs and the legalization debate. The author lights up the myriad figures who feature in cocaine's history: Columbus, Freud, Pablo Escobar, Manuel Noriega, George Jung, even Richard Pryor and the late basketball star Len Bias. He picks the brains of botanists and economists, lawmen and guerrillas, addicts and kingpins, and travels extensively throughout the Americas. The main drawback: Streatfeild's insistence that the reader be privy to superfluous research details such as fizzled leads, false starts, wrong turns and boring authors. In the end, though, Streatfeild delivers a straight tale about a world where nothing is as it seems.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. See All Editorial Reviews

Cocaine Addiction: How a Small-Town Boy Made $100 Million with the Medellin Cocaine Cartel and Lost It All

Editorial Reviews


From Kirkus Reviews
The up-your-nose, in-your-face life of George Jung, the high-school football star from small-town USA who became the American linchpin of the Colombian cocaine connection. Relying on extensive interviews with Jung and other key figures, Porter (Journalism/Brooklyn College) recounts a sleigh- ride-to-hell story of how 60's hippie innocence turned into 80's megadepravity. Porter dwells too long on Jung's unexceptional childhood (poor grades, risk-taking, shaky family life) but picks up steam when his subject comes of age--as a likable, handsome, well-muscled hedonist--and takes off for California and a haze of sunbathing, sex, pot, and LSD. Soon enough, Jung becomes chief marijuana importer to a number of prestigious East Coast colleges. Likening himself to Butch Cassidy, he moves his operation to Mexico and makes a mint until a series of busts stops him--temporarily.

In prison, Jung befriends a young Carlos Lehder and links up with the Medell¡n coke cartel. The money bandied about is staggering: The Colombian suppliers gross $35 billion a year, and Jung buys a house just to stash his cash (lining floors and walls with $100 bills): ``Money, Learjets, fast cars, wild women, houses with maids,'' is how he recalls it later. Inevitably, the roller-coaster hits the steep downward slope: paranoia, as Jung snorts mountains of coke; a heart attack in his mid-30s; a car-bomb attack by Lehder, by now a business enemy; scary trips to Colombia, during one of which Jung watched coke czar Pablo Escobar execute a police informer; a flurry of arrests and escapes; finally, the Big Bust. But, as always, Jung comes out unscathed, turning state's witness (with Escobar's approval) to sing against Lehder. Set scot-free in exchange for his testimony, Jung now works in a legit delivery service, transporting fish up and down Cape Cod. How a happy hippie blew it on blow--finely researched, told with pizzazz. (Illustrations) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. See All Editorial Reviews



The Cocaine Kids: The Inside Story Of A Teenage Drug Ring



Editorial Reviews


From Publishers

WeeklyA teenage-populated cocaine distribution ring in New York City's Spanish Harlem is probed by the author, a sociologist, who for almost five years observed its routines. "Williams proffers no quick solution to the drug crisis, but rather an illumination, in their own words, of damaged urban youth," remarked PW , calling this "a sobering picture of the dangerous, lucrative trade." Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

From 1982 to 1986, sociologist Williams followed the activities of a teenage cocaine ring in New York's Spanish Harlem. He tells their story in their own street language (and conveniently provides a glossary). The "kids" tell how cocaine is adulterated, packaged, and sold; how the chain of distribution works; and even detail the etiquette of drug selling and usage. They also give the stories of their lives, and Williams follows up with what has happened to them since 1986. Williams is very nonjudgmental, which is the book's main fault; by showing the drug trade primarily as a way for teenagers to attain status and money, and soft-pedaling the violence and harm involved, he makes the activities of the "kids" seem as normal as those of any teenagers with part - time jobs. For larger crime and sociology collections.
- Sally G. Waters, Stetson Law Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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