Drugs and Rights (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy) [Paperback]

Douglas N. Husak (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521427274 | ISBN-13: 978-0521427272 | Publication Date: July 31, 1992

This timely and important book is the first serious work of philosophy to address the question: Do adults have a moral right to use drugs for recreational purposes? Many critics of the "war on drugs" denounce law enforcement as counterproductive and ineffective. Douglas Husak argues that the "war on drugs" violates the moral rights of adults who want to use drugs for pleasure, and that criminal laws against such use are incompatible with moral rights. This is not a polemical tract but a scrupulously argued work of philosophy that takes full account of all available data concerning drug use in the United States today. The author is careful to describe the properties a recreational drug would have to possess before the state would be justified in prohibiting it. Since criminal laws against the use of recreational drugs are justified neither by the harm users cause to themselves nor by the harm users cause to each other, Professor Husak concludes that such laws are, in almost all cases, unjustified. This book will be of particular interest to philosophers in applied ethics and philosophers of law, but it will prove provocative reading for anyone with a serious concern in the issue of drug use and drug control.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"No one seriously interested in criminal justice in the United States can afford to ignore this book....Husak's book is certainly the best book by a philosopher on the right to drug use in recent years and will hopefully encourage philosophers and others to engage this issue with the kind of critical rigor it surely deserves." David A. J. Richards, Ethics

"Douglas Husak's Drugs and Rights is an extremely interesting and well written inquiry into whether adults have a moral right to the use of recreational drugs....While Husak primarily wants to make his case on moral grounds, this book also provides a useful overview of what we know about those who use drugs. The skillful blending of moral philosophy with empirical social science is certainly one of the strengths of this work....One can only hope that before we fight another losing battle in the drug war, Husak's analysis is given a wide reading." Donald W. Crowley, Legal Studies Forum

"[A] sensitive and reasoned contribution...to an area of debate far too often clouded by prejudice and collective hysteria." Will Self, Times Literary Supplement

Book Description

Do adults have the right to use drugs for recreational purposes? The first serious work to address the question argues that the "war on drugs" violates the rights of adults wanting to use drugs for pleasure, and that criminal laws against this use are incompatible with moral rights.

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (July 31, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521427274
• ISBN-13: 978-0521427272
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,290,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the most important book ever written about the War on Drugs, April 16, 2007

By 

Genuine Alectryomancer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Drugs and Rights (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy) (Paperback)

This book examines the issue of whether the War on Drugs is morally permissible, and concludes that it is not.

Many books written about the issue of whether the U.S. government should be waging war on drugs engage in an exercise of weighing the costs of the war on drugs against the benefits of the war on drugs. These usually involve either pointing out the unintended negative consequences of the war on drugs, or pointing out the ineffectiveness of the war on drugs, and/or the would-be costs of not having a war on drugs. While these issues are interesting, it is far more interesting to question whether the war on drugs is morally impermissible in the first place.

This book does just that, and it argues that laws against recreational drugs are incompatible with moral principles that nearly all reasonable people agree with. In other words, the book argues that a government exceeds the moral limits of its authority when it incarcerates its people for merely using recreational drugs.

In other words, let's say we were wondering what we thought about a total criminal prohibition of eating cheesecake. While we may well wonder whether a ban on cheesecake wouldn't be better for our collective health, and we might also wonder whether such a ban might actually prove impossible to enforce, or whether it might cause more problems than it solves, the primary issue is obviously whether a ban on cheesecake-eating is morally permissible in the first place. If it's morally wrong to incarcerate people for merely eating cheesecake, then the costs and benefits of laws against cheesecake hardly matter.

For some mysterious reason, most thinkers about the war on drugs either completely overlook the issue of the moral impermissibility of criminal prohibitions of recreational drugs or give the issue short shrift, and even those not guilty of either do not treat the issue with the kind of philosophical sophistication and clarity involved in this book.

This book addresses this primary issue of the moral permissibility of laws against recreational drugs, in a serious and sophisticated and clear manner, without pinning itself to any particular theory of government. This book is a serious work of philosophy, by a serious philosopher, that argues from moral principles and intuitions that most reasonable people share, but it is very accessible and clearly-written--no special training is required to understand the force of its arguments.

At the time this book was written, Douglas Husak was a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University (widely considered to have a top 5 or top 10 philosophy program). He is now a law professor at University of Michigan School of Law (a top 5 or top 10 law school by all accounts).

This is the most important book about the war on drugs that has ever been written. If you are wondering about the issue of the war on drugs, this is definitely where to start. If you are opposed to the drug war, you may better be able to put your finger on exactly why you feel that way after you read this book. If you think you are in favor of the drug war, your confidence in your position will be seriously shaken, at the very least, if you give this book a fair chance.

Douglas Husak is also the author of LEGALIZE THIS! which is more recently published, shorter, and possibly even more accessible than this one. I would recommend starting with this one however, and then moving on to also read LEGALIZE THIS!

After you finish this, and LEGALIZE THIS!, only then should you bother reading any other book about the issue of the drug war. Either of these books will really open your eyes and clear your head.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Glad I read Drug and Rights, September 28, 2004

By 

Mr. Hillis "MCH" (East Coast USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Drugs and Rights (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy) (Hardcover)

I used Husak's work to write a project for a logical reasoning undergrad class that claimed to prove deductively more than once over that Drugs should not be illegal in the U.S. The professor was pretty surprised it qualified as deductive.

There are some novel principles Husak employs unlike arguments I've read in other books. His logical tests of what a drug that deserved to be illegal would have to look like are important.

I was really pleased I decided to read this particular book on the subject, it was exactly what I was looking for as a critical thinker dubious of the War on Drugs and wondering whether or not the U.S. is totally off-base in its drug war.

The book is clear, fair, is not a manifesto by any means but a critical look at the arguments for and against laws-against-drugs by a legal, philosophical thinker and university professor.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic: a thorough analysis of Drugs and Rights, January 19, 2008

By 

Boris Yakubchik "professional" (Manalapan, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Drugs and Rights (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy) (Paperback)

Douglas Husak approaches the subject with an objective in-depth analysis of key points in the issue of drug decriminalization. He examines what drugs are and are not (for example how they are often impossible to categorize into 'recreational' vs 'medicinal') - he describes what sort of rights we have already and how drug prohibition is incompatible with those we already are granted by the legal system. Through empirical evidence, sound arguments, and hypothetical cases, Douglas Husak is very convincing in his conclusion that drug prohibition infringes on the moral rights; and law, needing a grounding in morality (as argued also in the book) is currently inconsistent and needs a change.

This book, though written over a decade ago is still current in its arguments: because of Husak's approach to the subject. For slightly different arguments (and a simpler and shorter and cheaper read) consider Douglas Husak's "Legalize This!: The Case for Decriminalizing Drugs".