The Case for Legalizing Drugs

(Hardback)

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On the 75th anniversary of the Harrison Narcotic Act that unleashed the federal anti-drug crusade, historian Richard Lawrence Miller explores the origins, purposes, and effects of America's drug war. Thoroughly documented, the book assembles diverse findings by chemists, biologists, pharmacologists, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, prosecutors, police officers, and drug users themselves. The resulting mosaic argues that most problems associated with illicit drugs are caused by laws restricting them. This book is a realistic appraisal of the legalization option, vital to anyone concerned about illicit drugs, public policy, and democracy. Despite the ineffectiveness and counter-productivity of anti-drug laws, enthusiasm grows for them. Laws that fail to eliminate drugs may nonetheless achieve hidden goals. Miller illuminates those goals and asks whether they are wise. Although drug war proponents may complain that civil liberties interfere with drug suppression, Miller argues that the answer is not less democracy, but more. He presents a message of hope and healing, based upon a century of scientific research and historical experience, and declares that legalization would not be a surrender to drugs, but liberation from them.

Reviews

"Historian Miller's study examines the real effects--physiological, social, and economic--of drug use on the country. Miller believes that the evidence shows that drugs can be used safely, that drug use is wrongly blamed for unrelated self-destructive habits, that the perceived relation between crime and drugs needs to be reconsidered, and that drug abuse has been mythologized into a potent political issue by a social elite that is unwittingly undermining democracy. Along the way Miller also outlines the American population's moral and legal response to drug use over the years. While Miller comes to the conlusion that drugs such as cocaine, heroin and marijuana, and LSD should be legalized, some of his arguments will strike both sighs of accord and sparks of anger, as he confronts and tries to demolish some traditional American attitudes toward personal freedom and responsibility."-Booklist
." . . the single most important book yet written about illegal drugs and the drug war. It's historically informed, thoroughly documented, and brilliantly argued. The U.S. Treasury is being raided and American citizens are incarcerated and dying for lack of the knowledgeable realism Richard Lawrence Miller advocates in this authoritative, compassionate book."-Richard Rhodes Historian of Science and Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
"Excellent from a civil liberties perspective. It not only contains points that should be considered in public policy debate, but contributes a remarkable collection of facts that constitute a local and national survey detailing the drug war's adverse impact on civil liberties. This is superb research and writing on one of the most difficult problems Americans face."-John M. Swomley Member of the National Board of Directors, American Civil Liberties Union and Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics St. Paul School of Theology
"This volume abounds in facts relating to drug use. Didactic and jarring in certain of its theses, but a necessary study for those concerned about drug use in America."-Judge Robert W. Sweet U.S. District Court for Southern New York and Former Deputy Mayor of New York City
"Miller . . . adds to an increasing chorus of American opinion in favor of drug legalization by marshaling an extraordinary number of sources and historical analogies to Prohibition and the time preceding 1914 when narcotics were legal. His chapter on the mythic attributions we give to drug users is unique. . . . [A] book so clearly and popularly written will convince almost any reader to question, at the least, accepted public policies and pieties."-Library Journal
Historian Miller's study examines the real effects--physiological, social, and economic--of drug use on the country. Miller believes that the evidence shows that drugs can be used safely, that drug use is wrongly blamed for unrelated self-destructive habits, that the perceived relation between crime and drugs needs to be reconsidered, and that drug abuse has been mythologized into a potent political issue by a social elite that is unwittingly undermining democracy. Along the way Miller also outlines the American population's moral and legal response to drug use over the years. While Miller comes to the conlusion that drugs such as cocaine, heroin and marijuana, and LSD should be legalized, some of his arguments will strike both sighs of accord and sparks of anger, as he confronts and tries to demolish some traditional American attitudes toward personal freedom and responsibility.-Booklist
Drugs do not threaten the American way of life; they are part of it, ' avers historian Miller as he makes a compelling case for declaring all drugs legal. The author wants the manufacture, distribution, sale, purchase, possession and use of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and LSD legalized, with government price controls enforced to keep the costs low, if need be. The goal of a drug-free America, he argues, is an impossible one; thus, the anti-drug war is an anti-people war especially punishing to the nation's youth and to African-Americans. Further, Miller claims, the battle harms American democracy by, in effect, condemning users as subhuman outcasts (he even draws analogies here with the anti-Jewish rampage of the Nazis in the 1930s). Turning conventional attitudes upside down, Miller's book offers rich food for thought--and for argument.-Publishers Weekly
Miller . . . adds to an increasing chorus of American opinion in favor of drug legalization by marshaling an extraordinary number of sources and historical analogies to Prohibition and the time preceding 1914 when narcotics were legal. His chapter on the mythic attributions we give to drug users is unique. . . . [A] book so clearly and popularly written will convince almost any reader to question, at the least, accepted public policies and pieties.-Library Journal
"Drugs do not threaten the American way of life; they are part of it, ' avers historian Miller as he makes a compelling case for declaring all drugs legal. The author wants the manufacture, distribution, sale, purchase, possession and use of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and LSD legalized, with government price controls enforced to keep the costs low, if need be. The goal of a drug-free America, he argues, is an impossible one; thus, the anti-drug war is an anti-people war especially punishing to the nation's youth and to African-Americans. Further, Miller claims, the battle harms American democracy by, in effect, condemning users as subhuman outcasts (he even draws analogies here with the anti-Jewish rampage of the Nazis in the 1930s). Turning conventional attitudes upside down, Miller's book offers rich food for thought--and for argument."-Publishers Weekly

Author Bio

RICHARD LAWRENCE MILLER was trained as a broadcaster and historian and resides in Kansas City, Missouri. Personal involvement in politics helped provide the richness of detail in Miller's book Truman: The Rise to Power. In Heritage of Fear: Illusion and Reality in the Cold War Miller established themes that he would draw upon while analyzing the drug war, particularly the importance of democracy as a tool to solve problems. Miller now brings together his mass communication talent, his scholarly discipline, and his Midwestern political savvy, continuing the celebration of democracy begun in his earlier works.