Our Right to Drugs: The Case for a Free Market

by Thomas Szasz

Overview

In Our Right to Drugs, Szasz shows how the present drug war started at the beginning of this century, when the US government first assumed the task of protecting people from patent medicines. By the end of World War I the free market in drugs was but a dim memory. Instead of dwelling on the familiar impracticality and unfairness of drug laws, Szasz demonstrates the deleterious effects of prescription laws, which place people under lifelong medical supervision. The result is that most Americans today prefer a coercive and corrupt command drug economy to a free market in drugs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815603337
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	04/28/1996
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	229
Sales rank:	1,092,271
Product dimensions:	6.08(w) x 9.04(h) x 0.56(d)
Lexile:	1480L (what's this?)

About the Author

THOMAS SZASZ is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, State University of New York Health Science Center, Syracuse. Dr. Szasz not only holds numerous awards but has been honored by the establishment of an award in his name for outstanding contributions to the cause of civil liberties. Generally acknowledged as having had a greater influence on contemporary thinking about psychiatry and mental illness than anyone in the field, he is the author of the classic, The Myth of Mental Illness, and more recently, The Untamed Tongue, A Dissenting Dictionary.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Drugs as Property: The Right We Rejected
The American Ambivalence: Liberty vs. Utopia
The Fear We Favor: Drugs as Scapegoats
Drug Education: The Cult of Drug Disinformation
The Debate on Drugs: The Lie of "Legalization"
Blacks and Drugs: Crack As "Genocide"
Doctors and Drugs: The Perils of Prohibition
Between Dread and Desire: The Burden of Choice
References
Bibliography
Index