The book is divided into five sections. The first section provides the context in which the modern war on drugs began and offers a glimpse at the nature of the problem. The second section looks at U.S. history and antecedents of drug policies and at the steady growth of international drug trafficking into what is now the world's fastest growing criminal enterprise. The third section profiles "hard targets" or major criminal organizations involved in international drug trafficking and responsible for supplying the U.S. population with heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and a variety of synthetic drugs. The fourth section examines the worldwide social, political, and economic impact of the international drug trade by focusing in the collaboration between powerful criminal syndicates and on the globalization of the international drug trafficking. The fifth section assesses the impact of U.S. drug policies and concludes U.S. policies have often been responsible for growth of the problem they have tried to stop. Practical options the United States should exercise if it is to regain control of the drug war are identified. References, notes, tables, figures, and photographs