Chronicle Book Review: Dr. Carl Hart's High Price Phillip Smith - StoptheDrugWar.org
go to original July 16, 2013

High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society by Dr. Carl Hart Check it out on Amazon.com

Dr. Carl Hart grew up black and poor in Miami in the 1970s and 1980s, learned discipline from his desire to be a professional athlete, joined the armed forces, and wandered almost by happenstance into a career in the neurosciences. Now, Hart is at the pinnacle of his field - a respected researcher in drug effects, the first African-American to become a tenured professor in the sciences at Columbia University, and a member of the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse and Dependency. And he has some things to say.

Some of those things contradict the conventional wisdom, but Hart has the cred - both street and academic - to state them. Although it is the addict or problematic drug user who is too often the media's face of drug use or the subject of scientific research, he notes, the vast majority of drug users are not addicts or problematic. And yes, that even extends to the most demonized drugs, like crack. While we were told one hit could get you strung out, it turns out only a small fraction of crack consumers are addicts, he points out.

Hart also has good, practical advice - naive drug users shouldn't take drugs the same way experienced users do, for example, or get enough sleep! - based not only on scientific research, but also personal observation and experience. Now at the pinnacle of his profession, he also wants to restore some sanity to our drug policies.

Dr. Hart has come a long way from the mean, if sun-splashed, streets of Miami, and with High Price, he takes you along for the ride. The journey is well worth it. Part memoir, part social history, part drug science, part plea for sanity on the issues of drugs, race, and class, High Price is revelatory as well as readable, illuminating as well as incisive, as impassioned as it is important.

Read the rest at StoptheDrugWar.org

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