| Description |
xxi, 240 pages ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
Preface: Writing about Drugs -- Pt. I. Drugs, Sobriety, and the Metaphysics of Consumerism -- Introduction to Part I: The Very Short History of Sobriety. 1. Pharmaka and Pharmakos. 2. What Is "Straight" Consciousness? 3. A Phenomenology of Addiction -- Pt. II. What Drugs Do and Don't -- Introduction to Part II: What Drugs Do and Don't. 4. User Construction. 5. "High": Drugs, Perception, and Pleasure. 6. Drugs and Thinking. 7. Drugs, Regression, and Memory -- Pt. III. Five Drug Studies -- Introduction to Part III: Disclaimers. 8. Cannabis and the War against Dreams. 9. Runaway Engines of Desire. 10. Mystery Drugs I: Alcohol. 11. Mystery Drugs II: Acid Metaphysics. 12. Squares and Cubes: Combinations of Drugs -- Pt. IV. Problems with Drugs. 13. Drugs and Violence. 14. Blow Money: Cocaine, Currency, and Consumerism. 15. Sex, Drugs, Technology, and the Body -- Conclusion: Toward a Diversity of Consciousness |
| Summary |
After considering several specific issues associated with drug use - including sex, violence, and money - Lenson concludes with his vision of the end of the Drug War by questioning the sense in condemning millions of Americans to lives of concealment and deceit |
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It has been more than twenty years since President Nixon declared the War on Drugs. In On Drugs, David Lenson delivers a scathing indictment of this war as an effort based, like all attempts to eradicate "getting high", on an incomplete understanding of human nature. From lotus-eaters to hippies to crackheads, he contends, history has shown the state's inability to legislate the bloodstreams of its citizens. Lenson ventures beyond conventional genres to view the drug debate from the largely forgotten perspective of those who use drugs. In successfully walking the fine line between the antidrug hysteria of the 1980s and an advocacy of drug use, Lenson shatters the ban on debate regarding drugs enforced in the "Just Say No" campaign and reveals the myriad ways "straight society" demonizes the drug user |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Subject |
Drug abuse -- Psychological aspects.
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Drug abuse -- Social aspects.
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Drugs and literature.
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Drugs of abuse.
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Drugs -- Physiological effect.
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Substance-Related Disorders -- psychology.
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Psychotropic Drugs.
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Social Environment.
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| LC no. |
95014386 |
| ISBN |
081662710X (hc) |
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0816627118 (paperback) |
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