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David
T. Courtwright, a professor of history at the University
of North Florida, has written a well-researched and
very readable history of the use and abuse of psychoactive
natural substances and their artificial derivatives.
He focuses on their early development, distribution
(both government-sanctioned and illicit), toleration,
taxation, and/or banning over the centuries of the modern
era. One of his major theses is that a given substance
becomes popular worldwide only if the "elite classes"
in the western world approve, thereby explaining the
prominence of alcohol, cannabis, and tobacco, for instance,
but not betel or khat.
He
documents the development of artificial derivatives
of many of the natural psychoactive substances, and
the medical community's early response about the beneficial
effects of such substances (viz. heroin and cocaine),
and eventual realization that in many cases the adverse
effects outweighed the benefits.
Courtwright's
use of dry humor brings a bit of comic relief to what
could otherwise be a dull read; my favorite is a comment
about Timothy Leary. "Leary had three attributes
indispensable to any true revolutionary: a contempt
for caution, an indifference to casualties, and a knack
for casuistry"--wonderfully alliterative. The text
is interspersed with illustrations, and has over fifty
pages of notes in the back for those who wish to read
further. This is a good book for the bedside night stand,
and gives the reader a broad view of what Courtwright's
phrase "psychoactive revolution" really means,
in terms of its effects on politics, health policy,
and international relations. --Larry S. Myers, M.D.
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