Customer Reviews

On Drugs

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is clearly one of the best to ever address links between consciousness, drug consumption, and societal demands. It is superbly written, with entertaining references to science, literature, history, and music. The author reaches an intriguing set of conclusions linking our attitudes about people who want to alter consciousness, the ever-present desire to continue a consumerist culture, and growing ideas about multiculturalism. The tone is very friendly-- the sort of prose that makes you want to sit down with the author over a beer. I particularly like that he draws distinctions among different illicit drugs and shows an appreciation for their varied effects.

This is simply a spectacular book. No one has written so well about drugs. Lenson is brilliant on the effects of drugs: what it's like to be high on this or that. He's marvelous on the history of the reception of various drugs--how pot came into the US and how its cultural meanings changed over time. He's also astoundingly good at showing what role drugs have played in the cultural imagination of the past twenty years, and how the war against drugs functions as, among other things, a war to regularize, normalize and delimit consciousness. The writing is very clear, but highly sophisticated, nuanced and often poetic. You gotta read it.

On Drugs raises many fascinating issues about drugs in American society. Lenson begins by exploding the myth of a Drug-Free America, and pointing out why the "War on Drugs" has failed, and a brief history of human drug use and American attitudes towards outsiders. One of the most interesting chapters is about drug use as a regression to childhood, and the chapter on stimulant abuse is chilling. Sometimes the author's concerns about consumer society seem to reek of liberal paranoia, but for the most part an excellent book

This is almost a great book! It provides a lot of great factual information about psychoactive compounds, a subject that is usually ignored. Much of the book is very interesting and very readable. However, when the word "Consumerism" enters a paragraph it becomes basically unreadable. There were times, because of this, that I almost gave up on the book.