The twentieth century saw a remarkable upsurge of research on drugs, with major advances in the treatment of bacterial and viral infections, heart disease, stomach ulcers, cancer, and mental illnesses. These, along with the introduction of the oral contraceptive, have altered all of our lives. There has also been an increase in the recreational use and abuse of drugs in the Western world. This Very Short Introduction, in its second edition, gives a non-technical account of how drugs work in the body. Reviewing both legal (alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine) and illegal drugs, Les Iversen discusses why some are addictive, and whether drug laws need reform. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

January, 2015 will mark a century of the war on drugs in the United States: one hundred years since the first arrests under the Harrison Act. Facing down this anniversary, Johann Hari was witnessing a close relative and an ex-boyfriend bottoming out on cocaine and heroin. But what was the big picture in the war on drugs? Why does it continue, when most people now think it has failed? The reporter set out on a two-year, 20,000-mile journey through the theater of this war--to find out how it began, how it has affected people around the world, and how we can move beyond it.

"Chasing the Scream" is fueled by dramatic personal stories of the people he meets along the way: A transsexual crack dealer in Brooklyn who wanted to know who killed her mother, and a mother in Mexico who spent years tracking her daughter's murderer across the desert. A child smuggled out of the Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust who helped unlock the scientific secrets of addiction. A doctor who pushed the decriminalization in Portugal of all drugs--from cannabis to crack. The title itself comes from a formative story of Harry Anslinger, first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, sent as a boy to the pharmacy for a neighbor screaming in withdrawal--an experience which led him to fear drugs without regard to context. Always we come back to the front lines in the U.S., where we instigated the war and exported it around the globe, but where change is also coming.

Powerful, propulsive, and persuasive, "Chasing the Scream" is the page-turning story of a century-long mistake, which shows us the way to a more humane future.

Addiction to drugs or alcohol is a disease affecting the entire family. Early childhood intervention decreases problems in adulthood. This helpful workbook provides basic information about addictions and encourages healthy coping skills. Children express personal trauma and feelings more easily in pictures than in words, and the pages of this title are perfect to 'draw out' those feelings and hurts. There is plenty of room for a child's artwork. A workbook to help children through the trauma of a parent's chemical dependency problems.

Why do people smoke? Taking a unique approach to this question, Jason Hughes moves beyond the usual focus on biological addiction that dominates news coverage and public health studies and invites us to reconsider how social and personal understandings of smoking crucially affect the way people experience it. "Learning to Smoke" examines the diverse sociological and cultural processes that have compelled people to smoke since the practice was first introduced to the West during the sixteenth century.
Hughes traces the transformations of tobacco and its use over time, from its role as a hallucinogen in Native American shamanistic ritual to its use as a prophylactic against the plague and a cure for cancer by early Europeans, and finally to the current view of smoking as a global pandemic. He then analyzes tobacco from the perspective of the individual user, exploring how its consumption relates to issues of identity and life changes. Comparing sociocultural and personal experiences, Hughes ultimately asks what the patterns of tobacco use mean for the clinical treatment of smokers and for public policy on smoking. Pointing the way, then, to a more learned and sophisticated understanding of tobacco use, this study will prove to be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of smoking and the sociology of addiction.

A columnist and editor for Reason magazine charges that the government and media have exaggerated the public's fears of recreational drugs, calling for better educational methods about the actual risks and challenges of addiction so that people can make realistically informed choices. Reprint. 15,00

The cigarette is the deadliest artifact in the history of human civilization. It is also one of the most beguiling, thanks to more than a century of manipulation at the hands of tobacco industry chemists. In "Golden Holocaust," Robert N. Proctor draws on reams of formerly-secret industry documents to explore how the cigarette came to be the most widely-used drug on the planet, with six trillion sticks sold per year. He paints a harrowing picture of tobacco manufacturers conspiring to block the recognition of tobacco-cancer hazards, even as they ensnare legions of scientists and politicians in a web of denial. Proctor tells heretofore untold stories of fraud and subterfuge, and he makes the strongest case to date for a simple yet ambitious remedy: a ban on the manufacture and sale of cigarettes.

This collection includes essays by eleven leading public health experts, economists, physicians, political scientists, and lawyers, whose activities encompass Congressional testimonies, Surgeon General's reports on youth smoking, and clinical trials for drugs for smoking cessation. They analyze specific strategies that have been used to influence tobacco use, including taxation, regulation of advertising and promotion, regulation of indoor smoking, control of youth access to cigarettes and other tobacco products, litigation, and subsidies of smoking cessation, and set them against the latest scientific findings about tobacco and the changing cultural and political setting against which policy decisions are being made.

Have you ever kept a diary? This is the diary of a young girl growing up in sixties America – an honest account of teenage life. But as well as discovering new friends, dating and going to parties, the author of this diary discovers something else: drugs. It is the era of free love and experimentation with mind-bending substances. And one thing leads to another.

This book was first published several decades ago as the shocking real diary of a young woman. Whether it is fact or fiction is up to you to decide.

Cigarette Wars is a meticulously researched, engagingly written history of the first anti-cigarette movement in America, 1880 to 1930, when cigarettes were both legally restricted and socially stigmatized. Progressive reformers and religious fundamentalists often came together to condemn smoking, but their efforts failed after the First World War, when millions of soldiers smoked and smoking began to be associated with freedom and modernity. Early anti-cigarette movement activities articulated virtually every issue that is still being debated about smoking today. Theirs was not a failure of determination but of timing.

The American Disease is a classic study of the development of drug laws in the U.S. Supporting the theory that Americans' attitudes toward drugs have followed a cyclic pattern of tolerance and restraint, author David Musto examines the relations between public outcry and the creation of prohibitive drug laws from the end of the Civil War to the present day. Originally published in 1973, with an expanded edition in 1987, this third edition contains a new chapter and preface that cover the renewed debate on policy and drug legislation from the end of the Reagan administration to the present Clinton administration.

This book is an action research study of a community at work. The community prevention project set the system in motion, revealing its character and internal dynamics. This process and its context are analyzed from a sociological point of view. It is shown that the type of community prevention that really works and creates sustainable changes, is neither value neutral nor given from above: it adheres to reason, rituals and emotions alike, and requires subjective involvement of the people in the community.

Dealing with three different approaches to drug misuse - prevention, harm minimization and treatment - this text. provides information from drug users themselves, giving a realistic picture of the wide variety of people who use drugs and the increasing variation in the types of drugs used. It also gives a review of research and other literature on the subject The main part of the book presents a practical guide for professionals and outlines a straightforward model of practice which should enable professionals to work in a variety of ways to meet different clients' needs. Other topics such as assessment, counselling and aftercare are also discussed. The text includes reports from more than 900 drug users giving a realistic picture of people who use drugs and insight into their motivation and problems This comprehensive text is intended for those working in social and health care professions including occupational therapists, nurses, social workers, general practitioners, psychologists, teachers and professionals within the criminal justice system.

The book provides an account of the lives and experiences of a group of female intravenous drug users in Glasgow. Based on participant observations of the women in their own setting and in-depth interviews, it is the first full ethnographic account of the lifestyle of female drug users.

This volume represents a landmark in the important and rapidly expanding literature of cross-cultural epidemiology that has been made possible by the worldwide popularity of the DSM-III and the multi-national use of a single survey instrument: the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS). Reviewing population survey findings across ten regions of North America, Europe, and Asia, this study is the first direct cross-national comparison of personal interview data on alcoholism, including prevalence rates and risk factors. The book carefully describes the background of the various surveys and the methods of analysis and comparison. Chapters on each region describe the prevalence of drinking problems, the symptomatic expression of alcoholism in that culture, aspects of the cultural background that are relevant to drinking behavior, and the association between alcoholism and other psychiatric disorders. Of particular importance in this volume is the inclusion of a chapter on alcoholism in the Socialist Republic of China, from which very little scientific information has been readily available. The inclusion of eastern and western cultural perspectives offers insight into both universal and culturally distinct aspects of alcoholism. The volume is essential reading for psychiatrists, epidemiologists, sociologists, and alcohol theorists, researchers and clinicians.

Drugs in Society: Causes, Concepts, and Control, Eighth Edition, focuses on the many critical areas of America's drug problem, providing a foundation for rational decision-making within this complex and multidisciplinary field. Lyman offers a comprehensive big-picture examination of the US drug problem, dealing with drugs, abusers, drug enforcement, and public policy. Organized in three sections: Understanding the Problem, Gangs and Drugs, and Fighting Back, topics covered include the business of drugs and the role of organized crime in the drug trade, drug legalization and decriminalization, legal and law enforcement strategies, an analysis of the socialization process of drug use and abuse, and a historical discussion of drug abuse that puts the contemporary drug problem into perspective. Suitable for upper-level undergraduates in Criminal Justice, Criminology, and related programs, Drugs in Society, Eighth Edition, uses logical organization and strong pedagogy (case studies, focused text boxes with related information, critical thinking tasks) to support learning objectives.

Drugs in Society: Causes, Concepts, and Control, Eighth Edition, focuses on the many critical areas of America's drug problem, providing a foundation for rational decision-making within this complex and multidisciplinary field. Lyman offers a comprehensive big-picture examination of the US drug problem, dealing with drugs, abusers, drug enforcement, and public policy. Organized in three sections: Understanding the Problem, Gangs and Drugs, and Fighting Back, topics covered include the business of drugs and the role of organized crime in the drug trade, drug legalization and decriminalization, legal and law enforcement strategies, an analysis of the socialization process of drug use and abuse, and a historical discussion of drug abuse that puts the contemporary drug problem into perspective. Suitable for upper-level undergraduates in Criminal Justice, Criminology, and related programs, Drugs in Society, Eighth Edition, uses logical organization and strong pedagogy (case studies, focused text boxes with related information, critical thinking tasks) to support learning objectives.

The Drug Wars in America, 1940 1973 argues that the U.S. government has clung to its militant drug war, despite its obvious failures, because effective control of illicit traffic and consumption were never the critical factors motivating its adoption in the first place. Instead, Kathleen J. Frydl shows that the shift from regulating illicit drugs through taxes and tariffs to criminalizing the drug trade developed from, and was marked by, other dilemmas of governance in an age of vastly expanding state power. Most believe the drug war was inaugurated by President Richard Nixon's declaration of a war on drugs in 1971, but in fact his announcement heralded changes that had taken place in the two decades prior. Frydl examines this critical interval of time between regulation and prohibition, demonstrating that the war on drugs advanced certain state agendas, such as policing inner cities or exercising power abroad. Although this refashioned approach mechanically solved some vexing problems of state power, it endowed the country with a cumbersome and costly war that drains resources and degrades important aspects of the American legal and political tradition."

The Drug Wars in America, 1940 1973 argues that the U.S. government has clung to its militant drug war, despite its obvious failures, because effective control of illicit traffic and consumption were never the critical factors motivating its adoption in the first place. Instead, Kathleen J. Frydl shows that the shift from regulating illicit drugs through taxes and tariffs to criminalizing the drug trade developed from, and was marked by, other dilemmas of governance in an age of vastly expanding state power. Most believe the drug war was inaugurated by President Richard Nixon's declaration of a war on drugs in 1971, but in fact his announcement heralded changes that had taken place in the two decades prior. Frydl examines this critical interval of time between regulation and prohibition, demonstrating that the war on drugs advanced certain state agendas, such as policing inner cities or exercising power abroad. Although this refashioned approach mechanically solved some vexing problems of state power, it endowed the country with a cumbersome and costly war that drains resources and degrades important aspects of the American legal and political tradition."

Getting Wrecked provides a rich ethnographic account of women battling addiction as they cycle through jail, prison, and community treatment programs in Massachusetts. As incarceration has become a predominant American social policy for managing the problem of drug use, including the opioid epidemic, this book examines how prisons and jails have attempted concurrent programs of punishment and treatment to deal with inmates struggling with a diagnosis of substance use disorder. An addiction physician and medical anthropologist, Kimberly Sue powerfully illustrates the impacts of incarceration on women's lives as they seek well-being and better health while confronting lives marked by structural violence, gender inequity, and ongoing trauma.

Illegal drug use is a recurrent problem across the nation, but at particular risk are the nation's youth. Studies have shown that among children, drug use begins with the abuse of legal substances (ie tobacco and alcohol) before graduating to illegal drugs, with marijuana generally the first. Along with drug abuse, violence is another danger the nation's young people must face, be it drug motivated or the result of other behavioural problems. Schools are considered prime places to head off these two threats through education about abstaining from drugs and controlling violent tendencies. In 1996, the Department of Education began overseeing the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act, which funds both state and national drug and violence prevention programs. Unfortunately, follow-up studies have revealed mixed results to the national program. The Education Department, though, is considering steps to strengthen and improve this critical program. This book examines and evaluates the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act and its programs, placing the measure in a background context and looking at its financial and administrative structures. Given the major problems of drug abuse and violence threatening to overwhelm children, these studies make for a timely analysis of an important issue.

Leading experts on the science, history, politics, medicine, and potential of America's most popular recreational drug
- With contributions by Andrew Weil, Michael Pollan, Lester Grinspoon, Allen St. Pierre (NORML), Tommy Chong, and others
- Covers marijuana's physiological and psychological effects, its medicinal uses, the complex politics of cannabis law, pot and parenting, its role in creativity, business, and spirituality, and much more
Exploring the role of cannabis in medicine, politics, history, and society, "The Pot Book" offers a compendium of the most up-to-date information and scientific research on marijuana from leading experts, including Lester Grinspoon, M.D., Rick Doblin, Ph.D., Allen St. Pierre (NORML), and Raphael Mechoulam. Also included are interviews with Michael Pollan, Andrew Weil, M.D., and Tommy Chong as well as a pot dealer and a farmer who grows for the U.S. Government.
Encompassing the broad spectrum of marijuana knowledge from stoner customs to scientific research, this book investigates the top ten myths of marijuana; its physiological and psychological effects; its risks; why joints are better than water pipes and other harm-reduction tips for users; how humanity and cannabis have co-evolved for millennia; the brain's cannabis-based neurochemistry; the complex politics of cannabis law; its potential medicinal uses for cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, and other illnesses; its role in creativity, business, and spirituality; and the complicated world of pot and parenting. As legalization becomes a reality, this book candidly offers necessary facts and authoritative opinions in a society full of marijuana myths, misconceptions, and stereotypes.

Packed with information, advice and learning activities, this book tells you what you need to know about drugs, young people's drug use, and how you can help them stay safe. It covers everything from what the effects are and why young people take drugs, to how to negotiate drug rules and ways to prevent and minimise harm. An easy to use section contains factual information about various drugs, covering a description of each drug, street names, a brief history, legal status, availability, extent of use and cost, effects, possible harms, and harm reduction advice. The newest and emerging drugs, such as legal highs, are included, as well as illegal drugs, alcohol, caffeine and tobacco. If you are working with or supporting young people or are a parent or carer, this is the book you need to help you understand drugs and respond positively and effectively to young people's drug use.

Addictive disorders are characterised by a division of the will, in which the addict is attracted both by a desire to continue the addictive behaviour and also by a desire to stop it. Academic perspectives on this predicament usually come from clinical and scientific standpoints, with the 'moral model' rejected as outmoded. But Christian theology has a long history of thinking and writing on such problems and offers insights which are helpful to scientific and ethical reflection upon the nature of addiction. Chris Cook reviews Christian theological and ethical reflection upon the problems of alcohol use and misuse, from biblical times until the present day. Drawing particularly upon the writings of St Paul the Apostle and Augustine of Hippo, a critical theological model of addiction is developed. Alcohol dependence is also viewed in the broader ethical perspective of the use and misuse of alcohol within communities.

* Why do people use drugs?
* What happens when people are intoxicated?
* Are we being medicated into normality?
Drugs and intoxication have been facts of human life for millennia. Across the world, many people use illicit drugs, smoke, and drink alcohol. Yet very little has been written about their experiences.
Academics, politicians and media reporting on the topic tend only to consider intoxication when it manifests as a social problem. This book takes a more nuanced view, and examines drug and alcohol use from a wider number of perspectives. It discusses issues such as the history of drug and alcohol use, the attractions of intoxication to individuals, and the control and regulation of drugs and their users. It also examines evidence for the rise of the so-called pharmaceutical society, and asks whether society is on the cusp of a revolution in psychoactive substance use.
This engagingly written text will be essential reading for upper-level students taking a range of courses, including the sociology of drugs, deviance and social control, and drugs and crime. It will also appeal to social work students, and anyone working with drug and alcohol users looking for a level-headed analysis of the pleasures and pains, highs and lows, of substance use.