Wheeling and dealing

Drawing on six years of fieldwork in an affluent Southern California enclave, sociologist Patricia A. Adler spent time among wholesale drug traffickers, observing their daily routines and conducting extensive interviews. The result is an inside look at a world of heavy partying and constant risk, where secrecy and intrigue are part of ordinary life.

This second edition returns to the people Adler studied and reports what became of several of her key informants. Following their lives across fifteen years, she examines how traffickers leave deviant careers behind and try to resume conventional lives.

Adler also considers how the federal war on drugs produced effects its planners did not intend. She links those consequences to rising violence, more sophisticated trafficking organizations, and the growth of international cartels.