Reviews
The author, Louis S. Berger, LSBerger@SwRI.edu

September 7, 1996

Eventhough by and large my book was well received in professional reviews (e.g., New England J of Med), the old myths about substance abuse, and the old proposals re "the war on drugs," persist. I urge interested readers to look at this book which sets the phenomenon of widespread drug usage in the context of a very pathological culture (viz. ecological problems, rampant crime, poverty, reliance on military concepts that are absurd and obsolete in a nuclear age, etc.). It is profitable and much more palatable to many segments in our culture to persist in the dated but appealing belief systems, and these dynamics maintain the status quo and assure that ineffective measures will continue to be implemented.