Ebook Download Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, by Jacob Sullum
The here and now book Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum our company offer here is not sort of normal book. You understand, checking out currently doesn't imply to manage the printed book Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum in your hand. You could get the soft documents of Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum in your device. Well, we imply that guide that we extend is the soft documents of guide Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum The material and all things are exact same. The distinction is only the kinds of the book Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum, whereas, this problem will precisely pay.
Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, by Jacob Sullum
Ebook Download Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, by Jacob Sullum
Some individuals may be laughing when looking at you reading Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum in your extra time. Some might be appreciated of you. And some might really want resemble you who have reading hobby. What regarding your very own feeling? Have you felt right? Checking out Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum is a need as well as a leisure activity simultaneously. This condition is the on that will certainly make you feel that you should check out. If you know are trying to find the book qualified Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum as the option of reading, you can locate below.
How can? Do you believe that you don't need adequate time to go with buying publication Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum Never ever mind! Merely rest on your seat. Open your device or computer system and be on the internet. You can open or visit the web link download that we offered to obtain this Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum By by doing this, you can obtain the on the internet book Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum Checking out guide Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum by on the internet can be truly done easily by waiting in your computer system and gadget. So, you can continue every time you have cost-free time.
Checking out guide Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum by on-line could be additionally done conveniently every where you are. It seems that waiting the bus on the shelter, hesitating the list for queue, or other places possible. This Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum can accompany you in that time. It will certainly not make you really feel weary. Besides, this way will additionally enhance your life top quality.
So, just be right here, discover the e-book Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum now and also review that swiftly. Be the very first to review this publication Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum by downloading in the web link. We have a few other e-books to review in this site. So, you can discover them likewise effortlessly. Well, now we have actually done to provide you the ideal book to check out today, this Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum is truly proper for you. Never dismiss that you need this book Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum to make better life. Online publication Saying Yes: In Defense Of Drug Use, By Jacob Sullum will really offer simple of everything to review and take the advantages.
The nationally syndicated columnist and Reason magazine editor presents a damning portrait of how politicized government agencies, antidrug activists, and a naïve national media have exaggerated the public's fears of the harmful effects of recreational drugs.
Jacob Sullum goes beyond the debate on legalization or the proper way to win the "war on drugs," to the heart of a social and individual defense of using drugs. Saying Yes argues that the all-or-nothing thinking that has long dominated discussions of illegal drug use should give way to a wiser, subtler approach exemplified by the tradition of moderate drinking. Saying Yes further contends that the conventional understanding of addiction, portraying it as a kind of chemical slavery in which the user's values and wishes do not matter, is also fundamentally misleading.
- Sales Rank: #593164 in eBooks
- Published on: 2004-05-11
- Released on: 2004-05-11
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Publishers Weekly
Opponents of the "war on drugs" have long focused on the distinction between drug use and drug abuse; that distinction is at the heart of Sullum's provocative and impeccably reasoned new title. Our expensive and ineffectual drug war, Sullum says, is predicated on a fundamental misconception that drugs are inherently "bad." Politicians and the media perpetuate the stereotype of the desperate, violent druggie, while the average user looks nothing like that, Sullum says-just as the typical drinker bears little resemblance to a wino passed out in the gutter. "We see the drug users who get hauled away by police, who nod off in doorways and on park benches, who beg on the street or break into cars," Sullum writes. "We do not see the drug users who hold down a job, pay the rent or the mortgage, and support a family." He describes the billionaire insurance executive who's also a "functioning pothead," the neuroscientist who enjoys MDMA at social events and the woman who likes a bit of heroin before cleaning house. Most people understand that alcohol can be dangerous if used to excess, but alcohol in and of itself does not "compel immoral behavior." Why, Sullum asks, is that not the case for marijuana, cocaine and heroin? He labels the vilification of certain drugs over others (like alcohol, nicotine and caffeine) "voodoo pharmacology." A senior editor at the libertarian journal Reason, Sullum rejects the frequent moralizing that clouds the drug debate, and frames much of his case as part of the greater argument against so-called "consensual" crime, which asks why an act by consenting adults that doesn't hurt anyone should be illegal. As with his last title, For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health, Sullum proves he's not afraid to take on entrenched public policies that he sees as fundamentally wrongheaded. Never preachy, his volume presents its heavily annotated arguments in clear, conversational tone that's refreshing for a book of this kind.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Jacob Sullum dismantles the antidrug messages." —The New Yorker
"A welcome departure from the choreographed war on drugs." —The Washington Post
About the Author
Jacob Sullum is a widely published journalist.
Most helpful customer reviews
110 of 111 people found the following review helpful.
This is a must-read.
By Anthony Berno
What an interesting book.
I read it faster than I've read almost any other book - cover to cover in two days. (I'm normally a really slow reader.) Although the middle kind of drags on, with the same thesis repeated in several different forms, it's quite an enlightening read.
I've always considered myself well informed and quite liberal on drug issues, but it turns out that I was much more influenced by anti-drug propaganda than I had realized. My mind has been filled with stories that are true, personal experiences, or second-hand accounts of people I trusted, but I was seeing them in the wrong light. I thought of my father performing autopsies on cocaine users whose hearts had stopped with no warning. Someone who tried to kill his roommate with an axe while tweaking on crystal. Lots of perfectly real scare stories, which had caused me to feel chills just thinking about these "hard" drugs.
But these were still viewed through the lens of prohibition. Conveniently forgotten in these tales were the many, many more cases my father had seen of alcohol poisoning, a common cause of death among young people in the town where I grew up. Drunken rages in which people were killed - one that killed one of my best friend's bosses just two months ago. Somehow, because of the legality and familarity of alcohol, these were not "scare stories" about drugs. They were, instead, stories about people, and their foolishness; the blame was not transferred to the chemical.
The best part of the book is his historical review of alcohol prohibition, and the hype over the evil powers of alcohol at a time when opium and cocaine were not only legal, but popular and commonly used in "patent medicines". He illustrates how prohibition didn't cut down on drinking for more than a few years, but instead shifted drinking towards hard liquor, a more dangerous substance that was simply easier to smuggle and conceal. Similarly, when cocaine and opium were legal, they weren't consumed in their most severe forms, but in much milder preparations such as beverages and tinctures. Prohibition, in retrospect, doesn't reduce use so much as make that use more severe, and probably more harmful.
Sullum doesn't argue that drugs are always good. He seriously considers the argument that drug prohibition is justified by the harm it prevents. But he does put all drugs onto a level playing field. There is an abundance of statistics indicating the rates at which drug problems actually occur, and these reveal a huge, invisible majority of drug users - even of "hard" drugs like heroin and crack - who are not addicted, do not suffer severe problems, and most often stop using the drug when it no longer suits their needs. Just as with alcohol.
In my mind, as is the case for many people, I had formed a hierarchy of harm. Tobacco and alcohol are not so great, but not so terribly harmful. Pot is maybe a little better, a little worse, but other things, such as crystal and PCP, are scary and dangerous. Common sense, right? Well, maybe not. When you look at actual patterns of use, these "hard" drugs don't look so hard anymore. It is the lack of direct experience with these things that makes us so suceptible to scare stories - the "voodo pharmacology" he describes, wherein these substances have the mysterious power to turn people into zombies. But, if Sullum is right, these scare stories, despite their kernel of truth, are mostly just mass hysteria. Psychologically, prohibition is hardly different from witch-burning.
Sullum is saying, in effect, that drugs don't cause addiction, but rather, addicts cause addiction. That drugs don't cause criminals, but that people are criminals to begin with; that drug use and crime have a common cause, and do not cause each other except through the mechanisms of prohibition itself. That addiction adheres not to the drug, but to the user, and the availability (or not) of any particular drug is not the most relevant factor. This is a not a new idea, but it is rare to have it explained and supported so clearly and convincingly.
In reading this, I find an almost existential relief. This book affirms the power of the individual to control their lives, and casts aside the superstitious, magical thinking that ascribes such amazing powers to mere chemicals. Sullum's argument becomes most interesting when he argues that drug use by teenagers is perfectly appropriate, so long as it is done with the guidance of caring role models. He points out how unreasonable it is to expect someone with no experience with alcohol to suddenly become "responsible" on their 21st birthday, and somehow just know how to use it appropriately. Or worse, that they should consume it furtively, with no guidance, at secret parties. Instead, he suggests that teenagers should be introduced to alcohol, among other drugs (he specifically cites marijuana) in controlled environments, preferably in the company of their parents. With a chorus of "what about the children" seemingly right around the corner, this is a brave statement to make. Perfectly sensible, of course, but it's always the most sensible ideas that are the most dangerous to say out loud.
Is this book biased? Such questions are very hard to answer. In reading it, I was reminded of the furor over The Skeptical Environmentalist, a book full of references to scientific literature that were later criticized as being tangential, incorrect, or at best, highly selective. I was frustrated by that controversy, but didn't have the motivation to track down all the references and evaluate them for myself. In contrast, with Saying Yes, I am eagerly awaiting its challengers. Because I want to know the truth; is this guy giving us a realistic portrayal of what drugs really do, or is he, well, "smokin' crack?"
My guess is that Sullum is right on the money. Reading this book has turned me from a lukewarm anti-prohibitionist to a true drug libertarian. If he's even approximately correct, it is clear that all drugs, even the "hard" ones, should be made legal for anyone over 21, and that we must reject this "voodoo" that is granting drugs much more power than they deserve. Only then will we find balance.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
This book taught me that Saying Yes is the best drug policy.
By TJ Feral
This book changed my life. It is so informative, well-argued and made me realize that yes, human beings do have the right to put whatever substances they wish into their bodies. The War on Drugs has failed, so instead of trying to make it illegal, the government should try to make it safer.
40 of 41 people found the following review helpful.
Very Well Done
By Mark K. Mcdonough
There is nothing not to like about Jacob Sullum's "Saying Yes." It's gracefully written, scientifically accurate and completely sensible. I guess I'm a little more pessimistic that other reviewers about the affect it will have on the drug policy debate -- as Sullum points out only too well, truth, common sense, and pragmatism have never had much to do with drug policy in the United States. If nothing else, this book will at least re-assure future generations that not everyone in our era was nuts.
Readers who have read a great deal on this subject will find much here that's familiar, but it's nice to have it all in one place and footnoted. And while I have quite a library of books on alcohol and other drugs, I did find a considerable amount of new info and thought-provoking angles. A very nice job.
Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, by Jacob Sullum PDF
Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, by Jacob Sullum EPub
Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, by Jacob Sullum Doc
Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, by Jacob Sullum iBooks
Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, by Jacob Sullum rtf
Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, by Jacob Sullum Mobipocket
Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, by Jacob Sullum Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar