The title is a bit hyperbolic. Maybe "challenges what you know about drugs" would be a little more accurate. This is yet another book that I learned about while watching "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." Or watching "The Colbert Report." Can't remember.
Anyway, this is a very good book. Dr. Carl Hart is a black man who grew up in South Florida. He was able to escape the deadly cycle of prison, dropping out of school and dealing drugs by joining the Air Force. He then was able to study in England, Wyoming, New York and elsewhere.
The book is largely autobiographical while studying the pharmacology of drugs in today's society.
Some of the main ideas of his book:
**It is rare for anyone to become addicted to methamphetamine or crack cocaine. Almost no one EVER gets addicted on the first hit. That is just a scare tactic.
**Crack cocaine and powder cocaine are pharmacologically identical. The difference is the method of ingestion. Crack is smoked; powder is snorted. Smoking the drug gets it to the brain faster than snorting, hence the "stronger" effect.
Here is something that you probably knew, but the methods of ingestion make all the difference. The fastest method of ingestion is injecting with a needle; next is snorting; next is smoking; and slowest is eating.
**The disparity in sentencing between crack and powder is based on fear and misinformation, not science. The sentencing disparity used to be 100:1. President Obama is the first President with enough courage to lower this disparity, but it is still too high at 18:1.
**The police and politicians are NOT the ideal persons to educate the public on the true effects of drugs. Indeed, even some scientists extrapolate wildly after experimenting on rats, trying to project the same results onto humans.
**"The effects of drugs on human behavior and physiology are determined by a complex interaction between the individual drug user and her or his environment." I've said this for years. The environment plays a huge role. When I was younger and experimented with LSD, the environment would make all the difference in the world. A person dropping acid at home, in a safe environment, with music, television and friends around will have a much different and better "trip" than someone who drops acid and leaves the house and mixes with strangers. To me, that's just common sense. But it appears that sense is not all that common.
**The media has played a large role in hyping drug stories. Always looking for an exciting, gripping story, they were instrumental in making cocaine illegal in the 1910's, in making marijuana illegal in the 1930's, and in vilifying meth in more modern times. Remember the stories about "ice" when it first "appeared"? It was so horrible people would get addicted with the first try! Bullshit. Ice is simply methamphetamine.
People always jump to wild conclusions and thus think Dr. Hart advocates the legalization of all drugs. Wrong. Even detailed scientific information on drugs is met with ridicule and hysteria. Millions of Americans take these drugs recreationally and most of them suffer no ill effects. This country is so far removed from having an intelligent conversation on drugs it is shameful and discouraging. Our sensationalized media is of no help at all. It is a near-miracle that marijuana is being rehabilitated in this country. I, for one, never thought that would happen in my lifetime, and I am very glad to be proven wrong. Maybe there is hope after all.
The Guardian had a good review of the book here.
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