Why does American law allow the recreational use of some drugs, such as alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine, but not others, such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin? The answer lies not simply in the harm the use of these drugs might cause, but in the perceived morality-or lack thereof-of their recreational use. Despite strong rhetoric from moral critics of recreational drug use, however, it is surprisingly difficult to discern the reasons they have for deeming the recreational use of (some) drugs morally wrong. In this book, Rob Lovering lays out and dissects various arguments for the immorality of using marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs recreationally. He contends that, by and large, these arguments do not succeed. Lovering's book represents one of the first works to systematically present, analyze, and critique arguments for the moral wrongness of recreational drug use. Given this, as well as the popularity of the morality-based defense of the United States' drug laws, this book is an important and timely contribution to the debate on the recreational use of drugs.

Using data from an ongoing longitudinal study of adolescents and young adults, this provocative volume examines the frequency, prevalence, and types of disruptive drug use in the workplace and in schools. The findings provide essential information for developing effective long-term prevention and education programs which focus on creating a drug-free work environment that is responsive to the needs of both employers and employees.

This important new study examines the value of day care in treating problems of teenage drug abuse. Aimed at behavioral scientists, primarily psychologists, sociologists, and drug abuse treatment practitioners, this work will add significantly to the body of knowledge about the types of patients and families using, benefitting and resisting available drug treatment programs. The research is based on an in-depth analysis of one hospital-based program that primarily serves middle class suburban white clients. The author includes unique long-term follow-up interviews of former patients and program dropouts six years after treatment and identifies the sociodemographic correlates linked to the completion of treatment and the maintenance of drug-free status during young adulthood. The book also focuses on the impact of the social characteristics and behavior of patients' families upon their long-term rehabilitations.

With a foreword by Dr. David E. Smith, founder and President of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc., San Francisco, this book sheds new light on treating substance abuse among middle class suburban youth. It also expands knowledge of outpatient drug treatments and provides some factual support for the utility of day care as a remedy for youth substance abuse problems. Delving into the correlates of successful and unsuccessful treatments, the study offers valuable suggestions on those likely to benefit from day care and those requiring more intensive residential treatments. Challenging conventional wisdom, the results suggest that complete abstinence from drugs may not be necessary, nor essential, in promoting optimal post-treatment adaptations for young adults who were former teen drug abusers. The findings also extend current knowledge on how families influence treatment outcomes, highlighting those family attributes and behavior that may aid in the rehabilitation process and as well as those that may sabotage treatment goals.

The drug problem in South Asia is mounting. This work provides an inside story of the pro-revenue drug policies pursued both by the British colonial authorities and post-independent governments in South Asia. It examines the resurgence of Indian traffickers in international drug trafficking in recent years, and presents an extensive overview of the Afghan crisis that endorsed money from heroin trafficking to support the war in Afghanistan. The dangers of the drug trade in South Asia have now become global the author assesses international efforts against drug trafficking and the factors constraining this.

Intravenous drug users account for nearly one-third of the current AIDS cases in the United States--second only to gay males--and are responsible for 72 percent of female and 59 percent of pediatric cases of AIDS. Thus the National Institute of Drug Abuse launched a major effort in 1987 to locate hidden users and to see how they function and to evaluate strategies and community-based programs in 50 cities and 60 nearby communities around the country in order to lower risks to IV users and to reduce the dangers that they pose to others in the population. Brown and Beschner present the very latest findings and come to well-tested conclusions about how to change behaviors positively. This handbook is written for use in college, university, and professional libraries and for students, teachers, policymakers, and practitioners in public health service and in public policy at all governmental levels to study carefully. Brown and Beschner open with an introduction showing how injection drug users and their sexual partners are at risk for aids. Part I describes the spread of AIDS in the United States and Puerto Rico. Part II depicts patterns of injection drug and crack use and their effect on sex partners. Part III deals with gender issues. Part IV goes into demographic and background factors. Part V discusses key issues in the use of drug abuse treatment. Part VI analyzes outreach and behavior change strategies. And Part VI looks into how risk can be reduced as a result of outreach and specific intervention strategies. The final chapter comes to some conclusions about the effectiveness of various interventions by the National AIDS Demonstration Research Project. Background readings also add to the importance of this major reference.

This text provides up-to-date, comprehensive, and accessible information about alcohol use in western society and other cultures. In 2009, President Barack Obama hosted a friendly "beer summit" on the White House lawn in an attempt to diffuse a racially charged incident between a Caucasian policeman and an African American professor. In the United States, beer and other alcoholic beverage companies are often the main advertisers during television sporting event coverage. A study has found that 44 percent of American college students participate in binge drinking, while the NHTSA reports that over 31 percent of traffic fatalities involve a driver with an illegal blood-alcohol content level. In our culture, consumption of alcohol is both widely accepted as a healthy social norm and condemned as a crime. Alcohol provides information about how alcohol acts upon the body, the social problems related to alcohol use, medical disorders connected to alcohol use, alcohol use throughout world cultures and the American population, and public policy issues. This book also contains sections on adolescent and college student alcohol use. Provides a chronological presentation of alcohol consumption in world cultures, American society, public policy, and related issues Includes a bibliography and index to facilitate further reading and direct access to information on specific topics

Despite the fear surrounding the issue of drug use by our children, there is little information to guide those interested in providing help to children vulnerable to substance abuse. "Children and Addiction" addresses the needs of counselors, teachers, parents, and other concerned parties by describing the influence of habit formation, opportunity, access, predisposition, family relationships, the educational environment, and interpersonal communication as precursors to the addictive process. The effects of addiction and its impact upon the individual, family, school, and society are discussed in detail. Additional information is provided on types of drugs, treatment, relapse, self-help groups, and the recovery process. Interspersed throughout the text are descriptive case histories to assist the reader in their understanding of the process of addiction.

Choice, Behavioural Economics and Addiction is about the theory, data, and applied implications of choice-based models of substance use and addiction. The distinction between substance use and addiction is important, because many individuals use substances but are not also addicted to them. The behavioural economic perspective has made contributions to the analysis of both of these phenomena and, while the major focus of the book is on theories of addiction, it is necessary also to consider the behavioural economic account of substance use in order to place the theories in their proper context and provide full coverage of the contribution of behavioural economics to this field of study.
The book discusses the four major theories of addiction that have been developed in the area of economic science/behavioural economics. They are:
- hyperbolic discounting
- melioration
- relative addiction
- rational addiction
The main objective of the book is to popularise these ideas among addiction researchers, academics and practitioners. The specific aims are to articulate the shared and distinctive elements of these four theories, to present and discuss the latest empirical work on substance abuse and addiction that is being conducted in this area, and to articulate a range of applied implications of this body of work for clinical, public health and public policy initiatives.
The book is based on an invitation-only conference entitled, Choice, Behavioural Economics and Addiction: Theory, Evidence and Applications held at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, March 30 - April 1, 2001. The conference was attended by prominent scientists and scholars, representing a rangeof disciplines concerned with theories of addiction and their consequences for policy and practice. The papers in the book are based on the papers given at the above conference, together with commentaries by distinguished experts and, in many cases, replies to these comments by the presenters.

Substance use disorders occur in 10% to 20% of patients presenting to the primary care physician, and rates are increasing. Primary care physicians are therefore in an excellent position to screen, provide early intervention, or refer patients to specialty care. This issue covers several types of substance abuse-including alcohol, prescription drugs, and recreational drugs-and gives detailed information on screening for and treating these problems.

This edited collection builds on the editors' previous works Drug Abuse Treatment: The Implementation of Innovative Approaches (Greenwood, 1994) and Innovative Approaches in the Treatment of Drug Abuse: Program Models and Strategies (Greenwood, 1993). This new book carries the study further by looking at the effectiveness of these treatment approaches. The essays represent an effort to systematically integrate science and practice in order to improve drug abuse treatment.

The rapid deepening of the global drug problem has spurred increasingly heated debate over the best solutions. For example, should drug use be an issue for healthcare services or a matter of criminal justice? Is universal abstinence both unrealistic and undesirable? Does drug legalization offer a viable answer? This book provides a lively and thought-provoking account of some of the most pressing issues for policy makers and practitioners in the debate about drugs. Designed as a platform for further discussion, it presents the full spectrum of perspectives on chronic and contemporary challenges to drug policy and explores the reality for drug users, dealers, suppliers and producers. Drawing on an international evidence base, the author considers: ? Drug enforcement measures: do they work and are they always ethical? ? Addiction treatment: its purpose, cost and limitations; ? Drug research: the strength of its impact on policy and practice; ? Possible solutions: from classic criminalization to radical harm reduction. Both engaging and timely, Controversies in Drugs Policy and Practice is an essential read for all social science students taking modules related to drug use, addiction and treatment. It also makes illuminating reading for academics and practitioners working within the field.

An ideal book for those coming to the anthropology of drugs for the first time, filling a surprisingly big gap in the literature Includes many case studies, such as drug tourism, the opioid crisis and 'county lines' in the UK as well as global examples from the Philippines, Mexico, North America and Europe Helps connect the anthropology of drugs to issues highly relevant to professional working in drug treatment, health, social work and mental health

The war on drugs is a war on ordinary people. Using that premise, historian Richard Lawrence Miller analyzes America's drug war with passion seldom encountered in scholarly writing. Miller presents numerous examples of drug law enforcement gone amok, as police and courts threaten the happiness, property, and even lives of victims-some of whom are never charged with a drug crime, let alone convicted of one. Miller not only argues that criminal justice zealots are harming the democracy they are sworn to protect, but that authoritarians unfriendly to democracy are stoking public fear in order to convince citizens to relinquish traditional legal rights. Those are the very rights that thwart implementation of an agenda of social control through government power. Miller contends that an imaginary drug crisis has been manufactured by authoritarians in order to mask their war on democracy. He not only examines numerous civil rights sacrificed in the name of drugs, but demonstrates how their loss harms ordinary Americans in their everyday lives. Showing how the war on drug users fits into a destruction process that can lead to mass murder, Miller calls for an end to the war before it proceeds deeper into the destruction process. This is a book for anyone who wonders about the value of civil liberties, and for anyone who wonders why people seek to destroy their neighbors. Using voluminous examples of drug law enforcement victimizing blameless people, this book demonstrates how the loss of civil liberties in the name of drugs threatens law-abiding Americans at work and at home.

This book discusses the psychological traits associated with drug consumption through the statistical analysis of a new database with information on 1885 respondents and use of 18 drugs. After reviewing published works on the psychological profiles of drug users and describing the data mining and machine learning methods used, it demonstrates that the personality traits (five factor model, impulsivity, and sensation seeking) together with simple demographic data make it possible to predict the risk of consumption of individual drugs with a sensitivity and specificity above 70% for most drugs. It also analyzes the correlations of use of different substances and describes the groups of drugs with correlated use, identifying significant differences in personality profiles for users of different drugs. The book is intended for advanced undergraduates and first-year PhD students, as well as researchers and practitioners. Although no previous knowledge of machine learning, advanced data mining concepts or modern psychology of personality is assumed, familiarity with basic statistics and some experience in the use of probabilities would be helpful. For a more detailed introduction to statistical methods, the book provides recommendations for undergraduate textbooks.

This book analyses the life histories of Jamaican men involved in the UK drugs trade, including wholesalers, street dealers, specialist cooks, cutters, and growers. Employing a life history approach, their autobiographical accounts are examined to provide an in-depth and unique insight of their journeys into drugs and crime.

Exploring the illegal drug issue in international context, this book looks at why harmonization has not already taken place at the European level. It considers the desirability and viability of harmonization, examines the conflict between repressive and liberal drug policies and applies a multi-level governance lens to the issue.

This book looks at a sample of female drug addicts seeking recovery in Narcotics Anonymous (NA). Through working the Twelve Steps and by attending women-only groups, these women are able to confront the double standard that makes recovery from addiction especially difficult.

Given the apparent failure of the War on Drugs to eliminate or even substantially decrease the use, sale, and trafficking of drugs, and given the negative social consequences of a Prohibition-like enforcement strategy, scholars and policy makers have often wondered why the administration continues to follow its policy of criminalization and enforcement. In Power, Ideology, and the War on Drugs, criminologist Christina Jacqueline Johns demonstrates that while the War on Drugs has been a failure in some respects, it has been highly successful in others. The War on Drugs has, for example, --diverted attention from severe social problems in the United States; --made drugs appear to be a cause of social ills rather than a symptom of social failures; --helped to legitimate a virtual abandonment of the lower class; --diverted attention from dangerous legal drugs which have been culturally and economically integrated into the society; --masked the fact that even the well-off are so alienated that they rely on illegal or legal drugs for support; --legitimated a vast expansion of U.S. state power and a consequent erosion of civil liberties and constitutional guarantees; and --legitimated further projections of state power into the internal affairs of Latin America. Because there has been an almost unquestioning acceptance of drug war policy, the literature on the subject frequently fails to focus adequately on the ineffectiveness of the policy to accomplish its stated goal, the heightened social costs brought about by a war strategy, the socioeconomic context of drug use and drug trafficking, and the wider political implications of the policy. Johns discusses these issues at length, as well as the spurious argument that drug trafficking is a threat to democracy in Latin America. Research for Power, Ideology, and the War on Drugs is based on information collected from domestic and Latin American publications, government reports, current social science research, and the findings of the Latin American Critical Criminology group. This important new look at the War on Drugs will interest policy makers, scholars, and students in criminology, sociology, political science, and Latin American studies.

Work on female drinking and female drug and alcohol abuse is proliferating because interest and productivity in alcohol research has expanded. In this work, the editors' primary focus is on the abuse of alcohol, its biological effects, behavioral effects, abuses, and problems. This book updates where this field is at the moment. The first five chapters deal with basic issues of biology, epidemology, and anthropology. The next five chapters deal with substance abuse including antecedents, consequences, comorbidity, fetal effects, special populations, and illicit drug use. Two chapters which follow are concerned with related disorders, that is, smoking and eating disorders. The final chapters cover treatment and prevention.

Illicit drug use is an issue that triggers a wealth of debate and concern. Drawing on well-respected authors in the field, this textbook is at the cutting edge of contemporary debates about illicit drug use. Comprehensive in its coverage, the book examines the major theoretical questions, themes and policy debates and presents them in a straightforward, lucid manner. Knitted together by a strong editorial framework and student-friendly features such as study exercises, Drugs in Britain is essential reading for students of sociology and criminology taking courses in this area.

According to the findings of this study, college women do not typically use drugs simply for the sake of taking drugs. Drug use was viewed as a part of relationships, and for some of these women, a very important part. Within their relationships, these women socially constructed drugs in traditional (i.e., using discourses of morality, legality, and health/personal safety) ways. They also tended to arrange drugs hierarchically--they created what the author labels an individualized drug acceptability ranking that helped them determine their drug using limits.

This study suggests that the decisions to use drugs are more complicated than previous literature has suggested. Studies attempting to find correlations between college student drug use, personality traits of drug abusers, gender differences, racial differences, parental influences and educational influences continue to dominate the literature on college student drug use. This book provides a starting point and an invitation to listen to more voices to determine other factors that influence one's drug using decisions.

The hatred of drugs, according to the author, is the axis of politics that has fundamentally shifted the nation's policy format--from the progressive orientation that dominated from from the time of Roosevelt to the Sixties, to the punitive orientation that emerged during the Nixon presidency and continues to this day. This triumph of the political use of drug hate is simultaneously a disaster in policy consequences as it corrupts the criminal justice system, exacerbates class inequality, drains public resources, and denies the public their Constitutional heritage. Sadofsky Baggins shows that the political success of the domestic war has overwhelmed the policy failure in the nation's deliberations. The War on Drugs is politically successful because it serves traditional racial antagonisms, media need for theater, religious needs for piety and denunciation of sinful pleasures, and maintains conservative coalition politics by emphasizing punishment over progress toward social justice. This book recognizes the need to reassess the War on Drugs as a necessary step toward national healing and future policy development. Recent popular movements and initiatives, as well as the failure of some politicians to benefit from deploying drug hate rhetoric, are considered as the opening of such an awakening.

Sadofsky Baggins treats the War on Drugs as the epic of politics and civilization in our time. This book continues his efforts to explain how well-meaning citizens and manipulative politicans and institutions construct laws that miserably fail in their intended purpose and harm the nation in significant unintended ways. This book is of interest to concerned citizens as well as scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with legal, drug, and political issues.

An advertising executive and sociologist who has studied alcoholism at length analyzes worldwide theoretical and empirical studies on the relationship between mass media and advertising and alcohol consumption and abuse. Dr. Fisher pulls together findings from content analyses, experiments, quasi-experiments, econometric studies, and evaluations of advertising restrictions and warning labels to determine how advertising works and affects human behavior.