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Illegal Drugs is the first comprehensive reference to offer timely, pertinent information on every drug currently prohibited by law in the United States. It includes their histories, chemical properties and effects, medical uses and recreational abuses, and associated health problems, as well as addiction and treatment information.
Additional survey chapters discuss general and historical information on illegal drug use, the effect of drugs on the brain, the war on drugs, drugs in the workplace, the economy and culture of illegal drugs, and information on thirty-three psychoactive drugs that are legal in the United States, from caffeine, alcohol and tobacco to betel nuts and kava kava. |
Average Customer Rating:  Definitely interesting! This book has so much history information that i wasn't aware of. It was fun to read and informational. I would recommend it to anyone going into the field or needing to know some information about drugs and their origins. Covers It All This book is an amazing plethora of information. It in no way condones drug use but educates the reader of the history, use and abuse. I would recommend this book to anyone who just wants a little more knowledge on the subject, a mother, a teacher etc... This is a very well written and researched book! Good not great The author is strongly against the War on Drugs and he tries to provide as neutral as possible a look at the facts. He is certainly not anti-recreational drugs which I found to be a nice change. It has a good history of drugs and their effects but it could have had more practical information e.g. I wanted to know how much marijuana to use for oral consumption as compared to how much I smoke and this book was of no help.
Overall good beginners summary of history and effects of common recreational drugs. Good not great Book Critique The topic of my book was the history of drugs. This book was aimed towards anyone who wanted to know the history and use of most drugs. It is hard to say what the specific goal of this book is because it covers many different areas on the topic of drugs. The author defiantly covers the topics that are brought up. The book was written very well and was easy to understand but still very informative. The book was written from a neural viewpoint and the author expresses no clear opinion. Although the author does advise against using drugs illegally and abusively.
There was no favorite part of the book for me I liked all of it. However I did find one fact very interesting, which was how, the United States, makes up four percent of the worlds total population and yet we consume sixty five percent of the world total hard drugs. The author did a good job of this by covering every aspect of drugs like their history, reasons for use, effects when used, and how they are used. For the most part the book was good but if there was one thing that had to be improved I would suggest making some of the chapters shorter. Most chapters were concise but sometimes there would be a longer chapter that could get boring because there were some redundancies.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about drugs. This book is a good source for a much more broad coverage on the topic of drugs. What I mean when I say a broad topic is how the book goes over the use of drugs in the ancient world and religion, the effects of drugs in the government, the selling of drugs, diseases caused b drugs, modern history and use of drugs and much more. However if you want to read this book you should know that it is pretty long. I think this book should definitely be kept on the chemistry book report list for next year. As a boy in high school it is surprising how often the topic of drugs comes up and if you have read this book you will know a lot about them. I also think that this book should be added to the library so it is at easier access to anyone who wants to be able to read it even if it is not for the book report.
I think this book served the purpose of the assignment very well. It taught me a lot about the history and use of drugs. It also showed me how drugs are related to chemistry and how their effects and reasons for causing those effects are all major parts of chemistry. In reading this book it also made me realize how big a topic like chemistry is and even though I may not like certain parts of it there are so many different interesting things to learn in chemistry.
Excellent read. Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to Their History, Chemistry, Use and Abuse (Review)
Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to Their History, Chemistry, Use and Abuse, is an interesting book. After reading it, I learned a lot I did not previously know about certain types of drugs. Also, I learned about what to do in case of an overdose of said drugs. Overall, it was a extremely educational experience reading the book and I would absolutely recommend it to be on the list of books to read next year.
In Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to Their History, Chemistry, Use and Abuse the book is organized in sections describing the health effects of drugs, the drug history, chemical makeup, along with many others. The author provides a section on the physiology of the brain and its reaction to chemicals. The book also thoroughly covers drugs with one detailed chapter for every single drug type you could imagine. Each chapter also includes a history of the drug, a personality profile of the type of people who use said drug, chemical characteristics of it, the drug's withdrawal signs once use is stopped or discontinued, long-term health problems of use of the drug, and emergency care information just in case one has an overdose.
The book concludes with resources for self-help, websites that provide information about drugs, and a list of drug abuse and treatment centers spread out all over in the United States. A bibliography for each chapter is also a big help for those who want to learn more about certain drugs more than what the book has already listed.
In the book, there is a section for basically every type of drug, as well as an intro with drug history and current drug laws, and ends with the question, will drugs be used? The author then says that that is not the question we should be asking. 95% of the United States uses some form of psychoactive drug. The real question is, which will be used?
Throughout the book, the author talks about how when certain drugs are criminalized, people turn to other types of drugs. For example, in the 1930s during the prohibition of alcohol, the use of marijuana soared in the U.S. hit its highest levels. Also, when the government cracked down on the use of drugs like cocaine among teens, the use of ecstasy and other drugs rose dramatically.
The beginning of the book also describes in not a lot of detail `legalized' drugs such as caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and nutmeg among others. Schedule 1 & 2 drugs are described in the book, with the latter group being about amphetamines like speed (meth) and others. Illegal Drugs includes over 178 different drugs and descriptions of them. This includes drugs ranging from LSD to Rohypnol the date rape drug. It is very well illustrated and contains at the end, an informative as well as lengthy bibliography.
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