Readings…

The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics by Richard Davenport Hines

I just finished reading this book last night. It took me a long time to get through. (I especially got bogged down in the chapter on League of Nations drugs resolutions.) The incredible cornucopia of detailed anecdotes and statistics in this book paints an incredibly complicated picture, which I feel could probably be summarized as follows:

The more illegal and punitive anti-drugs laws become, the riskier it becomes to traffick those drugs. This risk results, due to basic supply-demand market forces, in a huge increase in the profitability of these drugs, which in turn greatly rewards those who would choose to traffick in those drugs in spite of those risks. The US has been following this disastrous drugs policy for nearly a hundred years and, because of this nation’s international clout, has entangled the rest of the world (especially Latin America) in its drugs law enforcement adventures. Though it isn’t nearly as sexy, politically, to support the decriminalization of drugs and the treatment of addicts as patients, the historical record would seem to support that as the far more effective option in dealing with the drug addiction problem.

Information about the author: Richard Davenport-Hines is the recipient of the Wolfson Prize for History and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He writes for The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times, and The Independent. He lives in London.

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