Against excess

the long version

Drug-taking and drug control are alike: Both are often done to excess. Against Excess shows how we can limit the damage done by drugs and the damage done by drug policies. Mark Kleiman cuts through the rhetoric of the war on drugs and the legalization debate to discuss the practical options available for the control of the entire range of psychoactive substances, offering detailed prescriptions for managing alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, marijuana, and heroin. Against Excess explains why and how drugs in general--including currently legal drugs--are unlike other consumer goods in ways that justify governmental control over their distribution and use, then reviews the vocabulary of policy instruments through which that control can be exercised. The book is organized around three questions: Why do some people who can manage the rest of their lives get into trouble with drugs? How do their problems harm their families and their communities? What can governments do about this situation? Kleiman argues that we need to develop a middle course between prohibition and complete legal availability: a new category of "grudging toleration" that would apply to alcohol and to some of the currently prohibited drugs. He also argues that, as a practical matter, drug programs--enforcement, persuasion, and helping and controlling problem users--may be as important as the laws. Here is the definitive book on drug policy by one of the country's leading experts on the subject.