NCJ Number
235708
Date Published
1989
Length
336 pages
Annotation
This book attempts to explain the complex phenomenon of drug use in American society.
Abstract
The central theme of this book is that conventional anti-drug thinking cannot hope to deal with reality of the drug world. The criminalization of certain drugs has a range of effects; it fails to deter all use, but does deter some use, while at the same time having some consequences that are bad. Criminalization increases the price of drugs, makes money-making criminal activity among drug users more likely, strengthens the criminal underworld and the drug-using subculture, and makes illicit drug use and sale a more dangerous activity. However, criminalization does keep drugs out of the hands of a certain proportion of the public. Ten chapters discuss: 1) drug abuse, what is a drug, the social problems, drug legislation, and moral panics; 2) factors that influence drug effects, drug mixing, habituation; 3) psychological, sociological and biological theories of drug use; 4)the extent and trends of legal and instrumental, recreational drug use in America; 5) Acute effects of alcohol and alcoholism; 6) acute, subjective, and chronic effects of marijuana use with profiles on who uses this drug; 7) effects of hallucinogenic drugs, psychotic episodes, and genetic damage; 8) use of stimulants; 9) use of sedatives and tranquilizers; 10) use of heroin and the narcotics and their relationship to addiction and crime. Included is a detailed recommendation on how to better fight the drug war. References