Drug Crazy

Drug Crazy is a scathing indictment of America's decades-long "war on drugs," an expensive hypocritical folly which has essentially benefited only two classes of people: professional anti-drug advocates drug lords. Did you know that a presidential commission determined that marijuana is neither an addicitve substance nor a "stepping stone" to harder drugs only to have President Nixon shelve the embarrassing final report continue the government's policy of inflated drug addiction statistics? Did you know that several medical experts agree that cold turkey methods of withdrawal are essentially ineffective recommend simply prescribing drugs to addicts that communities in which this has been done report lower crime rates reduced unemployment among addicts as a result? Whether he's writing about the American government's strong-arm tactics toward critics of its drug policy or the reduction of countries like Colombia Mexico to anarchic killing zones by powerful cartels, Mike Gray's analysis has an immediacy clarity worth noting. The passage of medical marijuana bills in California Arizona (where it passed by a nearly 2-to-1 majority) indicates that people are getting fed up with the government's Prohibition-style tactics toward drugs. Drug Crazy just might speed that process along.