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Forbidden Game
Book by Inglis, Brian
256 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 1977
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March 17, 2019
Part of Scribner's 'History of Medicine Library', this 'social history of drugs' ranges widely over just 253 pages, covering everything from speculations about prehistoric shamanism to modern ('modern' being the 1975 publication date) psychopharmacology, from the old familiars, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine, to such controverial drugs as heroin, mescaline, LSD and cocaine.
Of course, it's all quite cursory. Still, it's interesting for the unusual opinions of its author, a science journalist. Unlike most such books this one gives little credit to supposedly objective phenomenologies of drug-induced behaviors and much credit to sociological factors which appear to make a mockery of any such definitive conclusions. In other words, what at one time and place may be an 'upper' is shown in another setting to be a 'downer' and so on. Set and setting, broadly conceived, are indeed important in his view.
The thrust of this book is anti-prohibitionist, the author giving case after case of prohibitionist campaigns leading to unintended consequences--and, perhaps, in some cases to only ostensibly unintended consequences, governments often profiting from increased consumption of illegal substances, governments often covertly managing aspects of the whole enterprise.
This is not a great book. It may serve as an introduction to the social history of drugs for anyone and as a provocatively different take on a much discussed matter even for the specialist. (A great book, the best case study I've ever read, is McCoy's 'The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia' and subsequent 'The Politics of Heroin'--pick 'em up if you find them!)
Of course, it's all quite cursory. Still, it's interesting for the unusual opinions of its author, a science journalist. Unlike most such books this one gives little credit to supposedly objective phenomenologies of drug-induced behaviors and much credit to sociological factors which appear to make a mockery of any such definitive conclusions. In other words, what at one time and place may be an 'upper' is shown in another setting to be a 'downer' and so on. Set and setting, broadly conceived, are indeed important in his view.
The thrust of this book is anti-prohibitionist, the author giving case after case of prohibitionist campaigns leading to unintended consequences--and, perhaps, in some cases to only ostensibly unintended consequences, governments often profiting from increased consumption of illegal substances, governments often covertly managing aspects of the whole enterprise.
This is not a great book. It may serve as an introduction to the social history of drugs for anyone and as a provocatively different take on a much discussed matter even for the specialist. (A great book, the best case study I've ever read, is McCoy's 'The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia' and subsequent 'The Politics of Heroin'--pick 'em up if you find them!)
Displaying 1 of 1 review