The Dope:
The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade
A myth-busting, 100-year history of the Mexican drug trade that reveals how a once-peaceful industry became a violent behemoth
The Mexican drug trade has inspired myths of a war between north and south, white and brown, between noble cops and vicious kingpins, corrupt politicians and powerful cartels. In The Dope, Benjamin T. Smith draws on unprecedented archival research, leaked DEA, Mexican law enforcement, and cartel documents, and dozens of harrowing interviews, to tell the real story of how and why this one-peaceful industry turned violent, interrogate the U.S.-backed policies that inflamed the carnage, and explore corruption on both sides of the border.
Vivid characters—from Ignacia “La Nacha” Jasso, “queen-pin” of Juarez, to Harry Anslinger, founder of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics—propel this thrilling history, which reveals the human cost of the trade. A dark morality tale about the American hunger for intoxication and the necessities of human survival, The Dope is essential for understanding drug war violence and how decades-old myths shape Mexico in the American imagination today.
Versión en Español
La traducción del libro salió en noviembre 2022.
Praise for The Dope
“a century-long chronicle crammed with as much violence and mayhem as a Don Winslow border novel.” New York Times Book Review
“ a magisterial and immensely readable new history”, The Financial Times
“With the skills of a fine historian and the verve of a true storyteller Benjamin Smith unearths the twisted roots of the catastrophic drug war. A fascinating, surreal and tragic tale.”
Ioan Grillo, author of El Narco: The Bloody Rise of Mexican Drug Cartels
“Benjamin Smith is a superb scholar. But The Dope is breathtaking. It casts an unforgiving light on the dark corners of a sinister history, reveals the empowerment of Mexico’s drug traffickers, and the responsibilities of both U.S. and Mexican governments”
Sergio Aguayo, author of La Charola: Una historia de los servicios de inteligencia en México
“Professor Smith turns his academic rigour to compelling narrative, so that at last we have a history-for-all of the rip-tides that have cut, since the dawn of the 20th Century, beneath what became Mexico's present tribulation, horror - and resilience - during an all-out drug war to feed our society's insatiable, decadent dependence on narcotics.”
Ed Vuiliamy, author of Amexica: War along the Borderline
“At last a history that truly makes sense of the sound and fury of the Mexican drug trade.”
Héctor Aguilar Camín
"The drug war in México has been one of the most covered stories of the last decades by news media around the world. But seldom do we have a look at the historical forces that turned a local criminal enterprise into a global business and that transformed petty criminal gangs into violent armies tearing the country apart. Ben Smith has written the definitive account of the historical forces that shaped our current tragedy. With careful research, rigorous writing and a keen appreciation for nuance and even some of the absurdities, The Dope reminds us that the drug war is not just today's story but a history decades in the making"
Javier Garza, El Siglo de Torreón and The Washington Post
“In fascinating detail, Smith tells of the forgotten men and women who have shaped Mexico’s narco trade, bringing these ghosts back to a wild and violent life.”
Toby Muse, author of Kilo: Life and Death Inside the Secret World of the Cocaine Cartels
Dope offers an expansive and compulsively readable popular history that successfully upends more than a century of false rhetoric, shattering the most insidious and persistent myths about Mexico’s drug trade. By revisiting bygone drug panics and the dawn of narcotics criminalization, Smith reveals how today’s staggering cartel violence is rooted in militarized policing, US meddling, and the state’s unending thirst for power and wealth. A vital corrective.
Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border.
"A roiling, rambunctious trek through all that created the modern Mexican drug trade -- populated by Cadillacs and Barbarians, godfathers and presidents, border dope queens, chatuma kings and, lining the way, a tawdry cavalcade of Mexican federal officials. Forget Chapo Guzman. This book makes clear that the pioneers who forged the trafficking industry were employed in the Mexican government. Really great stuff, really great reading."
Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic
“Lovely stuff….”
Shakin’ Stevens