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In the United States today, the use or possession of many drugs is a criminal offense. Can these criminal laws be justified? What are the best reasons to punish or not to punish drug users? These are the fundamental issues debated in this book by two prominent philosophers of law. Douglas Husak argues in favor of drug decriminalization, by clarifying the meaning of crucial terms, such as legalize, decriminalize, and drugs; and by identifying the standards by which alternative drug policies should be assessed. He critically examines the reasons typically offered in favor of our current approach and explains why decriminalization is preferable. Peter de Marneffe argues against drug legalization, demonstrating why drug prohibition, especially the prohibition of heroin, is necessary to protect young people from self-destructive drug use. If the empirical assumptions of this argument are sound, he reasons, drug prohibition is perfectly compatible with our rights to liberty.
No wonder the war on drugs is being lost: the warriors' arrows are all pointed in the wrong directions. The black-market-driven effects of prohibition, which include crime and its spiraling scourges as well as death and disease, are overall counterproductive. Ironically, the severe penalties intended to halt serious abuse intimidate the occasional user but not the real target, whose desperate search for consolation in drugs is more result than cause of the misery of marginalization. The rationale for reform, most commonly rooted in a cost/benefit comparison (public harm versus public health) or in the libertarian argument, comprises the first part of this persuasive plea for a paradigm shift and paves the way for the second, on approaches to legalizing drugs.
Explodes many of the myths that surround drug use.
The Big Idea series looks at the use of drugs in human society in this timely reexamination of the debate over the legalization of drugs. Combining a unique visual approach with carefully constructed narrative text, this entry in the Big Idea series provides a survey of the history of drug use, a review of the impact of the War on Drugs, an appraisal of the effects of legal versus illegal drugs, and an evaluation of the impact of the decriminalization of drugs. According to archaeological and historical records, ethanol in the form of beer in Sumer and wine in Egypt were first used recreationally at least thirteen thousand years ago, while psychotropic drugs have been used for thousands of years, mainly for religious purposes. This book sets out the history of the use of drugs since the Neolithic age, and explores the evolution of recreational drug use from the mid-eighteenth century on. It considers the danger and social impact of heavy use of legal alcohol or nicotine in contrast to the hazards to health and society associated with illegal drugs. It evaluates the effects of the fifty-year global War on Drugs on the criminal production and trafficking of drugs on the black market and on the abuse, health, and imprisonment of end users. Finally, it argues for the decriminalization of all drugs and the state regulation of the drug market, with suitable controls and regulation for each drug type.
Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know(R) provides readers with a non-partisan primer covering everything from the risks and benefits of using marijuana to what is happening with marijuana laws around the world. This book serves as the price of admission for any serious discussion about marijuana legalization.
While there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs, explicit public policies--regulations, taxes, and prohibitions--designed to control drug abuse are a more recent phenomenon. Those policies sometimes have terrible side-effects: most prominently the development of criminal enterprises dealing in forbidden (or untaxed) drugs and the use of the profits of drug-dealing to finance insurgency and terrorism. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer, leaving citizens and officials to face the age-old problem: What are we going to do about drugs? In Drugs and Drug Policy, three noted authorities survey the subject with exceptional clarity, in this addition to the acclaimed series, What Everyone Needs to Know®. They begin, by defining "drugs," examining how they work in the brain, discussing the nature of addiction, and exploring the damage they do to users. The book moves on to policy, answering questions about legalization, the role of criminal prohibitions, and the relative legal tolerance for alcohol and tobacco. The authors then dissect the illicit trade, from street dealers to the flow of money to the effect of catching kingpins, and show the precise nature of the relationship between drugs and crime. They examine treatment, both its effectiveness and the role of public policy, and discuss the beneficial effects of some abusable substances. Finally they move outward to look at the role of drugs in our foreign policy, their relationship to terrorism, and the ugly politics that surround the issue. Crisp, clear, and comprehensive, this is a handy and up-to-date overview of one of the most pressing topics in today's world. What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.
The SPSS Survival Manual throws a lifeline to students and researchers grappling with this powerful data analysis software. In her bestselling manual, Julie Pallant guides you through the entire research process, helping you choose the right data analysis technique for your project. From the formulation of research questions, to the design of the study and analysis of data, to reporting the results, Julie discusses basic through to advanced statistical techniques. She outlines each technique clearly, providing step by step procedures for performing your analysis, a detailed guide to interpreting data output and examples of how to present your results in a report. For both beginners and experienced users in psychology, sociology, health sciences, medicine, education, business and related disciplines, the SPSS Survival Manual is an essential text. Illustrated with screen grabs, examples of output and tips, it is supported by a website with sample data and guidelines on report writing. This seventh edition is fully revised and updated to accommodate changes to IBM SPSS Statistics procedures, screens and output. 'An excellent introduction to using SPSS for data analysis. It provides a self-contained resource itself, with more than simply (detailed and clear) step-by-step descriptions of statistical procedures in SPSS. There is also a wealth of tips and advice, and for each statistical technique a brief, but consistently reliable, explanation is provided.' - Associate Professor George Dunbar, University of Warwick 'This book is recommended as ESSENTIAL to all students completing research projects - minor and major.' - Dr John Roodenburg, Monash University A website with support materials for students and lecturers is available at www.spss.allenandunwin.com
“Hart’s argument that we need to drastically revise our current view of illegal drugs is both powerful and timely . . . when it comes to the legacy of this country’s war on drugs, we should all share his outrage.” —The New York Times Book Review From one of the world's foremost experts on the subject, a powerful argument that the greatest damage from drugs flows from their being illegal, and a hopeful reckoning with the possibility of their use as part of a responsible and happy life Dr. Carl L. Hart, Ziff Professor at Columbia University and former chair of the Department of Psychology, is one of the world's preeminent experts on the effects of so-called recreational drugs on the human mind and body. Dr. Hart is open about the fact that he uses drugs himself, in a happy balance with the rest of his full and productive life as a researcher and professor, husband, father, and friend. In Drug Use for Grown-Ups, he draws on decades of research and his own personal experience to argue definitively that the criminalization and demonization of drug use--not drugs themselves--have been a tremendous scourge on America, not least in reinforcing this country's enduring structural racism. Dr. Hart did not always have this view. He came of age in one of Miami's most troubled neighborhoods at a time when many ills were being laid at the door of crack cocaine. His initial work as a researcher was aimed at proving that drug use caused bad outcomes. But one problem kept cropping up: the evidence from his research did not support his hypothesis. From inside the massively well-funded research arm of the American war on drugs, he saw how the facts did not support the ideology. The truth was dismissed and distorted in order to keep fear and outrage stoked, the funds rolling in, and Black and brown bodies behind bars. Drug Use for Grown-Ups will be controversial, to be sure: the propaganda war, Dr. Hart argues, has been tremendously effective. Imagine if the only subject of any discussion about driving automobiles was fatal car crashes. Drug Use for Grown-Ups offers a radically different vision: when used responsibly, drugs can enrich and enhance our lives. We have a long way to go, but the vital conversation this book will generate is an extraordinarily important step.
The question is no longer if we should end the war on drugs but how we do it. This No-Nonsense Guide counts the human and financial cost of fifty years of drug war - and proceeds to outline a better way, looking at where drug law reform is already working, how to overcome the obstacles to reform, and what a post-drug war world might look like.
Defenders of marijuana use may seize on the ambiguity or absence of evidence for such damage and ignore any other effects on education or safety; those opposed to marijuana use may emphasize the possibility of chronic disease that is suggested by some laboratory findings and ignore the social, political, and economic costs of fighting a well-established custom. The Committee wishes to make clear what it regards as the limits of this report for the selection of policy alteratives. Scientific judgment can estimate the prevalence of different kinds of use, risks to health, economic costs, and the like under current policies and can try to project such estimates for new policies. It can come to some conclusions based on those estimates. But selection of an alternative is always a value-governed choice, which can ultimately be made only by the political process.