Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Hardcover)

~ Mark A. R. Kleiman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this witty and comprehensive treatise we follow Kleiman, lecturer in public policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, as he makes his way through ancient opium dens, Colombian coca fields, liquor stores, house parties and DEA offices. An urbane, informed observer, the author takes note of drug-trade economics, inconsistencies of government eradication efforts and frailties of human psychology and physiology in a surprisingly entertaining yet lucid analysis of drug addiction and its consequences for individuals and society. Kleiman makes a case for a middle road between prohibition and permissiveness, i.e., for taxes, regulations and personal-use licenses that might avoid the pitfalls of criminalization. He has many interesting suggestions: the deterrent value of a $1 tax on drinks and fining juveniles for smoking. And we hear from experts like Sholom Aleichem, who quips, "An innkeeper loves a drunkard, but not for a son-in-law."
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

Drug-taking and drug control are alike; both are often done to excess. "Against Excess" shows how we can limit the damage done by drugs and the damage done by drug policies. Mark Kleiman cuts through the rhetoric of the war on drugs and the legalization debate to discuss the practical options available for the control of the entire range of psychoactive substances, offering detailed prescriptions for managing alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, marijuana and heroin. "Against Excess" is organized around 3 questions: Why do some people who can manage the rest of their lives get into trouble with drugs? How do their problems harm their families and their communities? What can governments do about it? Kleiman argues that we need to develop a middle course between prohibition and complete legal availability: a new category of "grudging toleration" that would apply to alcohol and to some of the currently prohibited drugs. He also argues that as a practical matter drug programs - enforcement, persuasion, and helping and controlling problem users - may be as important as the laws.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (April 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465011039
• ISBN-13: 978-0465011032
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,265,956 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally moving the drug debate forward, May 28, 2007

By	Stephen R. Laniel (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Paperback)

Mark A.R. Kleiman's Against Excess is a pretty splendid little bit of work, by someone who has clearly been thinking for a long time about how to combat the various drug problems. As with a lot of what's been making me happy recently, Kleiman's book is good less for the solutions it advances -- though it does advance a lot of those -- and more for the habits of thought that it shakes loose. For instance, Kleiman objects to our calling the drug problem "the drug problem." He would insist that there are separate drug problems for alcohol, cocaine, nicotine and heroin. Each has its own modes of acting on addicts. Heroin, for instance, leaves addicts docile; hence the problem with heroin is not the drug itself, and more what happens when the drug is made illegal. Alcohol, on the other hand, is dangerous because it makes people more violent (toward spouses especially) and when it's combined with automobiles.

So Kleiman has a number of different policies to suggest for a number of different drugs. One recurring theme throughout is that there ought to be drug licenses, just as there are driver's licenses. Your drinking license could be revoked permanently if you've ever driven drunk. Likewise, you could choose to get a non-drinker's license if you worried about your own ability to control your habit, or if your religion forbade you from indulging. One advantage to getting such a license is that insurance companies would presumably give you lower rates.

A number of little suggestions like this add up to a book that strikes a highly nuanced pose between strict prohibition and strict legalization. One such spot in the middle is decriminalization, which makes dealing a drug illegal -- and more-strictly punished -- but leaves consumers alone.

Kleiman makes our thoughts substantially more flexible. As such, he moves the entire drug-policy discussion forward. I doubt anyone in government is listening to him -- as he himself notes, war metaphors are far more common and allow for much less wiggle room -- but it's good that he's there. I wonder whether he's made any inroads since the book came out in the early 90's.