Title: On drugs
First published: 1995
Description: It has been more than twenty years since President Nixon declared the War on Drugs. In On Drugs, David Lenson delivers a scathing indictment of this war as an effort based, like all attempts to eradicate "getting high", on an incomplete understanding of human nature. From lotus-eaters to hippies to crackheads, he contends, history has shown the state's inability to legislate the bloodstreams of its citizens.

Lenson ventures beyond conventional genres to view the drug debate from the largely forgotten perspective of those who use drugs. In successfully walking the fine line between the antidrug hysteria of the 1980s and an advocacy of drug use, Lenson shatters the ban on debate regarding drugs enforced in the "Just Say No" campaign and reveals the myriad ways "straight society" demonizes the drug user.

After considering several specific issues associated with drug use - including sex, violence, and money - Lenson concludes with his vision of the end of the Drug War by questioning the sense in condemning millions of Americans to lives of concealment and deceit.
Subjects: Drug abuse, Drugs, Drugs and literature, Drugs of abuse, Physiological effect, Psychological aspects, Psychological aspects of Drug abuse, Social aspects, Social aspects of Drug abuse, Drugs in literature, Substance-Related Disorders, Social Environment, History, Social history, Psychology, Psychotropic Drugs
LC classification: RM316 .L46 1995