In this deeply engaging, on-the-ground account of drug abuse in Baltimore, Sanaullah Khan closely examines and brings to life the vagaries of street life, the burdens of imprisonment, the inadequacies of drug treatment, and the failure and punitive nature of much drug policy in the city he grew to love and mourn for. All of this is neatly captured in his sentence: “Baltimore became home but was also my disappointment with the promise of American dream.” Beginning with the police shooting of Freddie Gray, a man police saw narrowly as a criminal street drug dealer, and ending with the transition from ethnography to application, this book is a valuable and thought-provoking contribution to our understanding of drug abuse in Baltimore and beyond as well as a call to action.

- Merrill Singer, University of Connecticut,