Narconomics: How To Run a Drug Cartel - Softcover

"One of the pithiest and most persuasive arguments for drug law reform I have ever read." (Misha Glenny New York Times)

"An economics manual for the Breaking Bad generation... a fascinating account." (The Times)

"Superb. One of the most original and smart takes I have read on the drugs world." (Moisés Naím, author of 'Illicit')

"Great fun... He reveals how drug barons run their illegal multi-billion dollar global businesses in much the same way as Fortune 500 chief executives." (Sunday Times)

"This is a clearly written and unassumingly clever book." (The Independent)

Everything drug cartels do to survive and prosper they’ve learnt from big business – brand value and franchising from McDonald’s, supply chain management from Walmart, diversification from Coca-Cola. Whether it’s human resourcing, R&D, corporate social responsibility, off-shoring, problems with e-commerce or troublesome changes in legislation, the drug lords face the same strategic concerns companies like Ryanair or Apple. So when the drug cartels start to think like big business, the only way to understand them is using economics.

In Narconomics, Tom Wainwright meets everyone from coca farmers in secret Andean locations, deluded heads of state in presidential palaces, journalists with a price on their head, gang leaders who run their empires from dangerous prisons and teenage hitmen on city streets - all in search of the economic truth.