Michael Agar

Dope Double Agent: the Naked Emperor on Drugs Michael Agar

Dope Double Agent is a war on drugs story, one that starts in the 60s and only ends with the last lines of the book. More than this, it is the story of a young Berkeley student--and occasional drug user--who turns into an insider expert in the drug war with a personal agenda to subvert and correct it. He checks in as a heroin patient, works the streets of New York, dips into worlds of PCP and LSD, and seeks the sources of crack, heroin and ecstasy. The delusions of the experts, the public and the politicians amaze him and make him think the double agent job will be easy. Instead it is impossible. He fails, spectacularly so on such hallowed ground as the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institutes of Health. Come behind the scenes and watch the drug policy emperor march along for decades thinking he wears a new suit of clothes.