8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Nation of Addicts, We need a fresh perspective and this is it., May 11, 2007
This review is from: High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It (Hardcover)
This book opened my eyes and made me realize that we are a nation of addicts. I was stunned by the fact the the US is 4 percent of the world's population, but consumes more than half the world's illegal drugs. Once you get through the mind blowing statistics, you begin to really understand the scope of this problem and how it is slowly destroying our society. I agree with Mr. Califano in saying that substance abuse is a disease and not a moral failing. Addict means addicted and when someone is addicted to something, they just can't stop. We must stop writing people off because they have a disease and focus on treating them - all of them. We are looking for cures for cancer and AIDS, we talk about them in the open and pour money into the research. Mr. Califano is right - we should do the same for substance abuse and addiction. This book offers a refreshing way to look at this horrible problem that plagues so many of our brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, spouses, children and friends. More importantly, it offers hope and a solution. Sign me up for the revolution , I want to do my part!
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
EXCELLENT AND COMPELLING!, May 20, 2007
This review is from: High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It (Hardcover)
As a social worker in NYC, I see first hand what substance abuse and addiction is doing to American families. I work with abused and emotionally disturbed children in the New York City public schools whose families are threatened and affected on a daily basis by drug abuse. These children don't have a fighting chance, and will be raised in a cycle of poverty and drug use that will continue for generations and the sad fact is, no one really cares. This book could be their ticket to a better life. The revolution that Califano writes about would change these children's lives for the better. HIGH SOCIETY is a breath of fresh air. I wholly agree with Califano's analogy of a political moderate, left and right chanting to send more horses and more men to help put humpty-dumpty back together again, rather than dealing with why he fell apart in the first place. Shoveling up the havoc wreaked by substance abuse and addiction hasn't solved the problem, I agree that it is time for a revolution in the way we think about this issue. I hope this book serves as a wake -up call to the nation. Although we need to be concerned about drug use and abuse across the world, we REALLY need to start in our country and begin to really look at the biggest internal threat to our nations future.
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24 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not a new idea in here, September 21, 2007
This review is from: High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It (Hardcover)
No one is more responsible than Joseph Califano, Jr., for the fact that America now suffers the worse drug abuse crisis in our history, worse than nearly any other nation on earth. His tirelessly senseless crusades based on sensational, anti-scientific reports and bombastic rhetoric have pivotally shaped our calamitous national drug policy, received oceans of worshipful media, and soaked up millions in public funding for three decades. Now, he admits without irony, things are worse than ever.
"High Society" repeats more of Califano's formula for disaster. Make all youth abstain? How? We now arrest 800,000 persons under 21 every year for alcohol or drug possession and have dumped billions into no-no "prevention" policies for 25 years. Why would arresting millions and spending trillions doing more of what failed suddenly work?
And to what end? The drug-use surveys Califano relies on are meaningless. American Baby Boomers growing up in the 1950s and `60s had very low rates of teenage drug and alcohol use (82% of high school seniors in 1973 never used an illicit drug even once, approaching Califano's abstinence dream). Yet, Boomers then and now suffer by far the worst rates of drug-related deaths, hospital emergencies, crime, and other addictive ills of any generation, far higher than later generations that used drugs and alcohol more. Meanwhile, countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece, where use of alcohol by children and teens is widespread (usually daily), have the lowest rates of drunkenness, alcoholism, and related problems of any cultures. That's because they employ strict social and family controls on all ages rather than bombast and prohibition.
Yet, Califano, along with his allies such as drug czars John Walters and William Bennett, have relentlessly thwarted efforts to moderate drug and alcohol use by young and old Americans, insisting instead that the impossible panacea of complete, eternal abstinence is the only option even for mild drugs and, for persons under 21, everything. Califano's politically convenient ideology that problems would disappear if teenagers abstained fails to note that youths who don't drink or use drugs come from demographic groups (such as teetotaling religions) in which adults abstain as well, while kids who get drunk at young ages come from families with histories of adult drug/alcohol abuse, violence, and mental disturbance. Chasing around, arresting, and locking up the vast majority of teens who drink and use drugs while displaying no immediate or long-term consequences is a recipe for maximizing the odds they WILL become abusers.
This book, like Califano's career, extends his muddled fanaticism that has endangered generations of Americans. It reinforces the urgency of removing the failed drug warriors he represents from power so that new generations of ideas can emerge to fix the catastrophe they created.
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