Combining memoir, popular science, and public policy, Hart’s study lambasts current drug laws as draconian and repressive, arguing that they’re based more on assumptions about race and class than on a real understanding of the physiological and societal effects of drugs. Growing up in a poor, predominantly African-American neighborhood in Miami in the 1970s and ’80s, Hart, now a Columbia University neuroscientist, was rarely encouraged to excel academically, and he was too often witness to institutional racism and violence in his own community. Still, despite its deprivations, this background also gave Hart certain advantages later in life, such as a more empathetic relationship with the subjects of his studies on the effects of crack cocaine and other drugs and a more realistic view of what role such drugs actually play in society. Central to his work is the idea that addiction is actually a combination of physiological and social factors, and the use of drugs does not itself lead to violence and crime. Drug laws, he argues, place minorities into a “vicious cycle of incarceration and isolation,” and the most rational policy choice would be decriminalization of all such substances. His is a provocative clarion call for students of sociology and policy-makers alike. Photos. Agent: Marc Gerald and Sasha Raskin, the Agency Group. (June)
High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society
Narrated by J.D. Jackson
Carl HartUnabridged — 11 hours, 48 minutes
High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society
Narrated by J.D. Jackson
Carl HartUnabridged — 11 hours, 48 minutes
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Overview
A pioneering neuroscientist shares his story of growing up in one of Miami's toughest neighborhoods and how it led him to his groundbreaking work in drug addiction.
As a youth, Carl Hart didn't realize the value of school; he studied just enough to stay on the basketball team. At the same time, he was immersed in street life. Today he is a cutting-edge neuroscientist-Columbia University's first tenured African American professor in the sciences-whose landmark, controversial research is redefining our understanding of addiction.
In this provocative and eye-opening memoir, he recalls his journey of self-discovery and weaves his past and present. Hart goes beyond the hype of the antidrug movement as he examines the relationship among drugs, pleasure, choice, and motivation, both in the brain and in society. His findings shed new light on common ideas about race, poverty, and drugs, and explain why current policies are failing.
Though Hart escaped neighborhoods that were dominated by entrenched poverty and the knot of problems associated with it, he has not turned his back on his roots. Determined to make a difference, he tirelessly applies his scientific research to help save real lives. But balancing his former street life with his achievements today has not been easy-a struggle he reflects on publicly for the first time.
A powerful story of hope and change, of a scientist who has dedicated his life to helping others, High Price will alter the way we think about poverty, race, and addiction-and how we can effect change.
Editorial Reviews
A seminal contribution to the conversation about the intersection of the legal system and drug addiction from a bodacious brother with both street credibility and academic credentials.
This mixing of personal story and hard research is interesting and appealing, in part because Hart isn’t preachy and partly due to his unique history as someone who actually lived that which he’s trying to help others avoid.
Hart’s autobiography weaves personal memoir, Drug Science 101, and enlightened discussions of American racial politics into one engaging narrative.
In his new book High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society, Carl Hart blowsapart the most common myths about drugs and their impact on society.
Perhaps nowhere has a voice been more resonant in a single place than in Dr. Carl Hart’s profoundly impacting new memoir, High Price.
It’s not every day you read a book that blows the lid off everything you’ve ever been taught about drugs, but Dr. Carl Hart’s recent work…does just that. Part memoir, part myth-buster…a fast-paced read.
Hart’s account of rising from the projects to the ivory tower is as poignant as his call to change the way society thinks about race, drugs and poverty.
Moving and inspiring…. Hart’s memoir… is deeply honest and often painful. And his account of the ways in which scientific evidence has been ignored in the war on drugs is as alarming as it is fascinating.
It’s a fascinating combination of memoir and social science: wrenching scenes of deprivation and violence accompanied by calm analysis of historical data and laboratory results.
A hard-hitting attack on current drug policy by Hart (Psychology and Psychiatry/Columbia Univ.), a neuroscientist who grew up on the streets of one of Miami's toughest neighborhoods. "[W]e have been bamboozled," he writes, "to believe that cocaine, heroine, methamphetamine or some other drug du jour is so dangerous that any possession or use of it should not be tolerated and deserves to be severely punished." Hart debunks claims that the use of crack cocaine is more dangerous than other forms of the drug and therefore should be punished more severely--a distinction that penalizes ghetto users who are the most typical crack users. Offering experimental data and his own personal experiences, he takes issue with the idea that addiction is strictly biological rather than a complex combination of cultural, social and psychological facts. Initially accepting prevailing notions about addiction, his own research over two decades convinced him that only 15 percent of frequent drug users are addicted. Reflecting on his experiences growing up in the ghetto, Hart realized that social environment was as important as the availability of street drugs. His own remarkable path to success included a large component of good luck. Since he hoped to become a professional athlete, he didn't drop out of high school, as did many of his friends, and he moderated his use of alcohol and drugs. When he failed to win an athletic scholarship, he joined the military. Although he was involved in criminal street activity, Hart was fortunate in avoiding arrest and a criminal record that would have disqualified him from the military and the track to higher education. In his view, the focus on illegal drug trafficking "obfuscates the real problems faced by marginalized people," and neuroscientific research focuses too much on the action of neurotransmitters to explain addiction. An eye-opening, absorbing, complex story of scientific achievement in the face of overwhelming odds.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940173662668 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Publication date: | 12/17/2013 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Sales rank: | 1,048,247 |
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