Recommended Reading
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Contact this reviewer to trash or praise (I'll post the good ones, of either stripe).
Drug War / Liberty / Politics
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Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do : The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country - Peter McWilliams - Peter McWilliams died in the summer of 2000 because he was denied medical marijuana to suppress nausea caused by his medication for HIV/AIDS. His home state of California legalized medical marijuana, and the Federal Government found it necessary to raid his home there (and that of his medically-challenged friend Todd McCormick, now doing five years in a Federal penitentiary), and arrest and convict him. Subject to random urine tests, Peter died choking on his own vomit. It is not a stretch for me to claim that he was murdered by this heartless government. Peter was brilliant and multi-talented, and a reading of this astonishing book will confirm that. I defy anyone to read this book and not become fundamentally enraged at the audacity with which the government has continued to encroach on the precious liberties which the Founding Fathers penned in the hopes of their eventual historical fruition. In one of his activist emailings (Peter worked until the week he died), he noted that "...four DEA agents told me they found ['Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do...'] on the shelf of every drug bust they had gone on, making me ideological enemy #1 in their eyes..." Be one of the over one million NON-drug dealers with this excellent work on your shelf. (Peter's generous spirit provides for an opportunity for you to read this book free at his site, for however long it may remain. RIP, Peter) |
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How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World : A Handbook for Personal Liberty - Harry Browne - I read the first edition of this book in the '70's, and its message has lingered with me ever since. When Lennon / McCartney sang "You tell me it's the Institution, well, you better free your mind instead" (Revolution #1 - The Beatles (The White Album), this is what they meant. Harry, the Libertarian Party nominee for the 2000 Presidential election, successfully drives home the point that true freedom is a state of mind; that, regardless of the socio-political milieu one finds oneself in, we are all obliged to negotiate our needs and desires with those around us. Far from being some Zen-like isolationist philosopher, Harry provides concrete examples of how freedom can be enjoyed in love, toil, and life in general. Plus, the updated 1998 edition has more information regarding this tiresome and expensive War on Drugs. |
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Drug Crazy : How We Got into This Mess and How We Can Get Out - Mike Gray - This excellent book has Mike Gray upclose in urban drug stings, and zooming out to the policy level, all the while grounding the reader excellently in the historical context of the growth of the War on Drugs. His shocking statistics and quotes are all well-annotated with extensive chapter notes, and his recommendations for recovery are sober and practical. I only wish I had brought my copy of his book to the NORML 2000 conference to be signed, where I ran into him (sadly briefly) at the bar. |
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Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis - Christian Parenti - A terrifying book which locates and exposes the socio-economic underpinnings for the war on the poor, a "class war from above," which is convincingly posited by Mr. Parenti as the root of our current crisis of criminal-justice hysteria. In the context of its equally excellent historical overview of this evolution, I found it a fascinating cross-read with Mike Gray's " Drug Crazy." |
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Drug Warriors and Their Prey - Richard Lawrence Miller - Since I would only be paraphrasing (plagiarizing) another reviewer's point, I'll just begin with his opening lines: "There is a certain difficulty in writing a review of [this book], but not because it is a difficult book in any usual sense. On the contrary, it is disarmingly easy to understand the author's every implication. Yet the theme of Mr. Miller's essay, a point by point comparison of the reality of Drug Prohibition in the United States today with exactly analogous situations leading up to Hitler's Reign of Terror and the attempted destruction of the Jewish people, is certain to repulse the very readers who need most to understand that, indeed, it can happen again. Thus the book, and any honest review of it, might achieve little more than preaching to the converted..." (Peter Webster - Copyright 1999 International Journal of Drug Policy, used without permission). This is profoundly true. In an exchange with Peter, I asked him if he had any idea of how someone could make the author's point without being written off as a kook, and he replied "Very diffincult! The U.S. is the last place that can admit to...er...atrocities or crimes against humanity." Perhaps when Columbia and her neigbors begin to truly melt down, we will be forced to face this (of course, Salvador and Iran-Contra are pretty handily ignored to this day.) But, back to the book itself. I read this right on the heels of Christian Parenti's Lockdown America, (reviewed above), and the chilling image of "social underclass" in Parenti's book being purposefully demonized a la Miller's hypothosis emerges. The book chapters are titled with steps in a "Chain of Destruction", derived from a Holocaust historian's (Raul Hilberg - Destruction of the European Jews) characterization of the process: Identification, Ostracism, Confiscation, Concentration, and Annihilation, which I would call Stereotyping (of drug users), Drug-testing in the workplace, Asset Forfeiture, Prison, and Its Attendant Problems (jobs and families and lives destroyed.) This book convincingly evokes the '60's paranoia of being Held Down By The Man. The "very readers who need most to understand" should have this book shoved on them as, at the very least, a cautionary tale... |
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From Chocolate to Morphine : Everything You Need To Know About Mind-Altering Drugs - Andrew Weil, M.D. & Winifred Rosen - This classic, recently updated, remains the definitive reference for honest information about things that make your head go funny. Its value as a reference, however, is even overshadowed by the dignity of the courage of the venerable authors and their implied message of quiet, reasonable discourse in the midst of the fear-mongering of the Drug War. |
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The Boys on the Tracks - Mara Leveritt - Far from being the Clinton-bashing wet dream which the Bubba-haters no doubt anticipated, Mara Leveritt's heart-wrenching story of a grieving mother smoldering in the face of the implacable visages of power serves to indict the entire DemoPublican complex. (The scope of the evidence and credible inferences served up by Ms. Leveritt goes to Washington, at the time of this drama headed by President and former CIA Director George Herbert Bush.) |
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The Emperor Wears No Clothes: The Authoritative Historical Record of Cannabis and the Conspiracy Against Marijuana - Jack Herer - I can't remember how I got my first copy of this book (no STML jokes), but I do remember calling Jack's distribution outlet and buying a few more copies and some buttons, bumper-stickers, and other such paraphernalia of the propoganda trade. The excitement this book caused me then was typical of a book which read at first like yellow tabloid but slowly unfolded this deceptively well-documented truth about hemp and its roots of prohibition. Jack painted a seemingly crystal-gazing picture of hemp's utility, and goddam it if he hasn't turned out to be gloriously correct, sir! (His diligent outing of a denied government film "Hemp For Victory", also documented in a biographical video about Jack's odyssey, " Emperor of Hemp", is a high point.) |
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Shattered Lives: Portraits From America's Drug War - Mikki Norris, Chris Conrad & Virginia Resner - Read this and weep. See your tax dollars at work. Contemplate the irony of the right wing "Family Values" mantra supplemented by this home-wrecking policy. Join november.org. |
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Private Truths, Public Lies : The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification - Timur Kuran - Now here's some serious red meat. I include this book because, after reading it, I am convinced that the social dynamics articulated by Mr. Kuran bear upon the art of persuasion and woe be unto those who do not understand. This is an uppity-up academic work (and could be characterized as a bit dry), and as such put me in school for a bit. In the final analysis, it will give a language to something you understand intuitively. Use it to shape your communications policies. |
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The Great Disruption : Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order - Francis Fukuyama - This contemporary genius of sociology outlines an interesting argument that modern societal upheavals are directly attributable to a transformation to an information-based economy from an industrial one, much like the industrialization of civilization caused upheavals during its move from agricultural models. I found this accountant's (no disrespect intended towards the lettered and brilliant Mr. Fukuyama) portrayal curiously Zen-like in its optimism and contemplative distance from the cacaphony of social engineering-think. |
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Writing on Drugs - Sadie Plant - A fun and learned book, tracing the influences of various drugs on high (pun unintentional) literature and the attendant twist this lends to not only the arts, but economical and social policy evolution as well. This intellectual step into the looking glass of addled thinking repeatedly polishes the stones of confusion into brilliant gems of insight. This is a good antidote against the esteem-crushing peer review we, uh, experimenters are subjected to in these modern times. I thank you, Ms. Plant. |
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Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated The Amazon - Patrick Tierney - Hey! We knew this! Still, the American Anthropological Association is rocked and shocked. Whatever. The discoveries and conclusions here may be trite to liberals everywhere, but Patrick Tierney frequently risked life and limb (not to mention academic association) in order to tell this story. This book rightfully has won at least one award so far (I can't remember which), and I'm sure it's destined to become even more lauded. It might even stop the madness, albeit much, much, too late. Oh... what madness? Scientific and economic exploitation of the indigenous Yanomami, resulting in an odorously inelegant annihilation of yet another group of "primitive, savage" folk. Just the same way the "earth peoples" have been greeted by Westerners everywhere. Except that this wasn't your grandfolks; this story unfolds right up into a gory decade of the '90's. Rocked and shocked, indeed. |
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Smoke and Mirrors : The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure - Dan Baum |
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Ending the War on Drugs : A Solution for America - Dirk Chase Eldredge |
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Drug War Politics : The Price of Denial - Eva Bertram(Editor), et al |
Psychology / Spirituality
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