From Publishers Weekly
Far from being a crippling addictive lure, marijuana is actually "one of the most benign substances known to man," according to this fact-filled and impassioned pro-pot manifesto originally published in 1996. The authors, marijuana-law reform activists, detail weed's many medicinal uses in the treatment of diseases like AIDS, glaucoma and cancer, examine the wonders of industrial hemp, and tout legalized marijuana as a potential economic boon and a lucrative tax-cow. The real problem, they argue, is the criminalization of marijuana, which has wasted untold billions, trampled our Constitutional liberties and thrown millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens into jail even as it has fueled crime by taking marijuana out of the legal marketplace and putting it in the hands of criminal syndicates. They blame this policy of prohibition on an unholy alliance of panicky parents, pharmaceutical and liquor companies eager to maintain their monopoly on medicinal and mind-altering substances, and the law-enforcement and prison industries that thrive on the war against pot. The authors amass a wealth of statistics and carefully reasoned arguments to support their controversial view and conclude with a helpful list of marijuana-law reform organizations and a quixotic exhortation to tokers to take vigorous action on behalf of legalization. This book is a compelling challenge to the prohibitionist orthodoxy.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Rosenthal and Kubby offer crisp, well-reasoned argument for legalizing marijuana, obviously suffering none of the short-term memory loss said to afflict the pothead as they proceed and never, never letting a sentence trail off in an ellipsis. They contend that most of the evidence against marijuana is overblown, misinterpreted, or false and that the war on the weed has harmed society more than the drug itself ever could. After decades of government-sponsored antipot propaganda, and with California passing a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for medical applications, this is a timely screed. Selected
Doonesbury strips illustrate main points and lighten the overall mood appropriately, and an intensive notes section provides readers with sources for further research as well as documentation.
Mike Tribby
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.