Ingrid Walker

This is a very academic read about drugs. I'm not entirely sure what the point is, apart from maybe raising several issues with "current" (mid 2010s) drug policy in the US.

Firstly, this book is very academic. Expect to read a lot of sentences like this:

The pleasure sought in the phenomenology of use practices, the alterity inherent to the performance of a self, and the rehearsal or rejection of cultural norms implicit in the act are familiar and unremarkable aspects of many people's lives.

I found my eyes glazing over and frequently I skipped over sections. I don't have the patience for academic works anymore. Academics write for other academics. But if they really want their arguments to be heard, they should be writing for non-academics.

Secondly, I'm not really sure what this book is about. What's the thesis? What main idea or two should I have come away with this book thinking about? I have no idea. The book has four parts: defining the meaning of drug user, criminalization isn't working, discussions of medical drugs, and the pleasure of drug use. But there is no major thesis to this book. And I didn't need to read 30 pages of academese to find out that prohibition and criminalization doesn't work.

Some things I found to be disingenuous, or at least confusing without the author taking more of a clear stance on things. The author writes about illicit drug use as if it's some great thing that people do to change their moods. But then she rails against the medical model of pharmaceuticals. I'm not giving the pharmaceutical industry a free pass here (they are guilty of an awful lot), but come on, if illegal drugs can change moods in a positive way, let's acknowledge that legally used prescription drugs can as well. I'm done with all of the arguments about how antidepressants are a neoliberal plot to make Americans more productive. Some folks need antidepressants to live, so let's stop judging the people for whom antidepressants are lifesaving medications.

Not to mention, and I do concede that this is one of the author's points, there is not enough research behind using illicit drugs to affect mood. Through a lot of reading on the topic (although I am by no means an expert) I've come to believe that many cases of addiction occur due to people self-medicating for mental illness, trauma, or something else that could be more healthily treated in another way. Without treating the underlying cause of the drug use, addiction is going to continue being a problem for many people. And the author's comments about the number of folks who use vs. have problematic drug use struck me as a little bizarre. The author showed a plot of number of alcohol and illicit drug addicts plotted as a percentage of US population. Then she took 100% - that percent and said that percentage of people use non-problematically. But that's not how math works. 100% of the US population aren't using drugs, so you can't subtract from 100.

Basically, I don't disagree with the author that a lot of US drug policy is ill-informed, archaic, racist, and just downright dangerous. But without suggesting an actual plan of action moving forward, I'm not sure what this book hopes to achieve.… (plus d'informations)