Mark A. R. Kleiman - Drugs and Drug Policy. What Everyone Needs to Know [2011][A]

Book Description
Publication Date: July 13, 2011
While there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs, explicit public policies--regulations, taxes, and prohibitions--designed to control drug abuse are a more recent phenomenon. Those policies sometimes have terrible side-effects: most prominently the development of criminal enterprises dealing in forbidden (or untaxed) drugs and the use of the profits of drug-dealing to finance insurgency and terrorism. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer, leaving citizens and officials to face the age-old problem: What are we going to do about drugs?
In Drugs and Drug Policy, three noted authorities survey the subject with exceptional clarity, in this addition to the acclaimed series, What Everyone Needs to Know. They begin by, defining "drugs," examining how they work in the brain, discussing the nature of addiction, and exploring the damage they do to users. The book moves on to policy, answering questions about legalization, the role of criminal prohibitions, and the relative legal tolerance for alcohol and tobacco. The authors then dissect the illicit trade, from street dealers to the flow of money to the effect of catching kingpins, and show the precise nature of the relationship between drugs and crime. They examine treatment, both its effectiveness and the role of public policy, and discuss the beneficial effects of some abusable substances. Finally they move outward to look at the role of drugs in our foreign policy, their relationship to terrorism, and the ugly politics that surround the issue.
Crisp, clear, and comprehensive, this is a handy and up-to-date overview of one of the most pressing topics in today's world.

Reviews
"Drugs and Drug Policy is the product of scholarly work but comes in the form of a guidebook of answers to questions simple and complex about everything to do with the two topics. It is fit for both the policymaker and the concerned parent (how many books can this be said of?) because it combines a rigorous analytical approach to drugs without skipping over the social reasons the topic deserves to be discussed in the home. Kleiman, Caulkins and Hawken's review of the nuances of the drug issue can't help but elicit an appreciation for the variety of approaches against drug use that could supplement or substitute for our current top-down one." --Forbes.com

"Drugs and Drug Policy is a practical book which aims to debunk myths...thoughtful and clearly written." - The Economist

"A product of genius, in form and content: more than two hundred questions, all relevant and urgent, with succinct and lucid answers. When I started the book, I had strong opinions on many of the topics it covered; again and again--every time the book came into conflict with my original beliefs--the authors changed my mind. If you care about drugs, you need to read this book. If you don't, read it anyway, just to see how it's done." --Thomas Schelling, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences

"In this deceptively simple book, Mark A.R. Kleiman, Jonathan P. Caulkins, and Angela Hawken eviscerate many of the arguments behind the policies that have been the leading weapons in the war on drugs. But they also cast a skeptical eye on some shibboleths of the burgeoning drug reform movement...the authors' penetrating and nuanced critique of the growing calls for legalization is one of the highlights of the book." -- The New Republic

"This book is incredibly useful, in both format and content. It has made me more aware than ever of the extent to which people are either uninformed or misinformed about most issues having to do with drug policy, drug trafficking, and criminal activity. If Washington's political leaders, government officials, and policy analysts give the book the wide attention it deserves, we might finally begin the kind of serious, rational debate about drug issues that the US and the rest of the world desperately needs." --Peter Hakim, President Emeritus and Senior Fellow of the Inter-American Dialogue

"[The authors] ask the right questions, and their answers and discussions can benefit anyone connected to the subject-users and enforcers, policy makers and implementers, innocent bystanders and citizens...worth reading." -Tickle the Wire.com

"An easy-to-read, authoritative guide to the key issues...[The authors] aren't trying to make friends, they are trying to tell the truth as evidence or logic leads them." --Eric Sterling, President of The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, Sterling on Justice & Drugs

"The authors are refreshingly candid about the trade-offs and limitations of drug policy, and through a series of brief answers to 143 questions, they provide a well-written and generally fair-minded summary of the vast literatures bearing on drug problems." --Health Affairs

About the Authors
Mark A.R. Kleiman is Professor of Public Policy at UCLA, editor of The Journal of Drug Policy Analysis, and author of When Brute Force Fails and Against Excess.
Jonathan P. Caulkins is Stever Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University.
Angela Hawken is Associate Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University.