Inside a drug war so screwy that people don’t know what’s illegal—until it’s too late.
Bizarro is a page-turning tale of the unprecedented prosecution of Burton Ritchie and Ben Galecki, the Florida-based founders of a sprawling “spice” (synthetic cannabinoid) operation. With this book, journalist and former New York City narcotics prosecutor Jordan S. Rubin exposes a Reagan-era law called the Analogue Act, which targets dealers selling drugs that are “substantially similar” to controlled substances—an unwieldy law that produces erratic results in court.
Rubin brings readers deep inside the synthetic war, exploring how Ritchie and Galecki landed in its crosshairs and why one of the DEA’s own chemists may have been their best chance at freedom, until he was arrested too. This stranger-than-fiction narrative is backed by thousands of pages of court records and exclusive interviews with defendants, lawyers, law enforcement, celebrities, and more.
Bizarro reveals the world of underground chemists making drugs faster than the government can ban them, dealers making millions in a gray market, and a justice system run amok.
Содержание
Contents
Intro: Bizarro
1. Humpty Dumpty’s Designer-Drug War
2. Frozen Addicts, Emergency Powers
3. Dr. Frankensteins
4. Creating a Monster
5. Controlling the Spice
6. Team Player
7. Ryan Goes West
8. Summer Jam (Leaving Las Vegas)
9. Come on in, Cosey
10. Florida Sunshine
11. Information Asymmetry
12. Being Civil—at First
13. The Right to an Attorney
14. Clarence Thomas on Bath Salts
15. Curious Animal
16. Egalitarian Principles
17. A Case about Drug Dealers
18. Dynamite
19. Worse Than Crack
20. The Defense Calls Arthur Berrier
21. Their Kind of Person
22. Bizarre Relationships
23. Tooth and Nail
24. Synthetic Kings Crowned
25. Mandatory Minimums over Zoom
26. Devil’s Advocate
27. Latest Front
Outro: The Story Was Quite Clear
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
Об авторе
Jordan S. Rubin is a journalist and a former prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he was assigned to the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor.