Drug Use for Grown-Ups

neuropsychopharmacology. It was a thrilling time. Twenty years later twenty years I ve spent studying the inter- actions among the brain, drugs, and behavior and observing how moralizing about drug use is expressed in social policy my initial excitement has given way to skepticism, cynicism, and disillusionment. When I was a naive graduate student, I believed that I was doing God s work by telling people to stay away from drugs. I believed that the poverty and crime that plagued my childhood com- munity were a direct result of drug use and addiction. I now know that telling people to avoid drugs is no more godly than the Church prohibiting my Catholic wife from using birth control, but it is just as paternalistic, a way of restricting one s freedom and autonomy.

What about the notion that drugs led to poverty and crime in my neighborhood? Well, that is simply an ugly fantasy, an incredibly effective one to be sure. It s effective not only because it is still believed by large segments of the American public but also because it seemingly provides a simple solution to complicated problems faced by poor and desperate people. Many other complex factors are responsible for the turmoil seen in the places of my youth and other communities. But it took me a long time to see that clearly myself. I was too busy for too long being a soldier in the regime, caught up in the cause of proving how dangerous drug use is.

I HAD THE COOLEST job in the world. I got people high on a daily basis.

I instructed the twenty-five-year-old white man to light the marijuana cigarette, which was to be smoked through a hollow plastic cigarette holder so that the contents were not visible. He inhaled for five seconds, then held the smoke in his lungs for another ten seconds before exhaling. He repeated this two more times, with a forty-second inte

voluntary drug use . . . a valuable tool for mounting arguments in defense of free choice. Kirkus

A timely, fact-based, coherent, humane counterargument to America s spectacularly failed War on Drugs. Booklist (starred review)

Comprehensive and illuminating . . . Columbia University psychology professor Hart combines his scientific research on how recreational drugs impact brain functioning with reflections on his own use of heroin and other drugs. . . . Careful reasoning and detailed evidence buttress the book s most surprising claims . . . This bracingly contrarian take provides much food for thought. Publisher s Weekly

You must read this book. It's an eye-opening, mind-expanding masterpiece from one of the most important scientists in the world. You won't be the same after. Johann Hari, author of Chasing the Scream

Why won t this nation admit that criminalizing drugs has been far more deadly than the drugs themselves? This deeply personal, honest, and courageous book shines a crucial light on a topic cloaked in racism, repression, and myth. Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body, Shattered Bonds, and Fatal Invention

You may not agree with the author's personal enthusiasm for recreational drug use (and I happen not to). Nonetheless, Drug Use For Grown-Ups is a powerful, convincing tour of the hypocrisy that underlies so many of our drug laws, and the brutally unequal ways in which the laws are enforced. One shares Hart's fury at how, as per usual, it is the weak and marginalized members of society who are most targeted. Robert Sapolsky, author of Behave

Dr. Carl Hart challenges our popular assumptions about drug addiction both through science and through a forthright account of hiw own heroin use. Drug Use For Grown-Ups makes a powerful case against stigmatizing and criminalizing adults who get high. Shane Bauer, author of American Prison

Carl Hart provides a viscerally personal and candid book that debunks common myths that demonize recreational drug use. Hart a neuroscientist and expert on substance abuse brings us inside his own experiences with enlightened drug use and his frustration with the ineffectiveness and harm of the war on drugs. His book is timely with the dramatic rise in overdoses in the US compared to societies that have decriminalized drugs and seen a reduction in usage, overdoses and arrests. BJ Casey, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Yale University

Dr. Carl Hart is that rara avis: A stellar neuroscientist in fact, the preeminent expert on recreational drugs who is honest and enthusiastic about drug use. In Drug Use For Grown-Ups he dissects unalloyed data to dismiss our pernicious mythologies so that we can better understand the truly liberating nature and the real, not the imaginary, risks of these oft-maligned experiences. But Hart is also a captivating storyteller, and that s what makes this book . . . well, addictive as he follows the data, wisdom and love from Switzerland to Portugal to New York City,  taking you along for the ride. As he bravely and humanely traces the science supporting treatment, regulation and decriminalization instead of succumbing to stigma or pandering to respectability politics, he displays a devotion to scientific truth in the service of better human health and relationships. By the time you reluctantly approach this book s end, you will have acquired an education in what drugs offer us, their potential price, and healthy policies. Armed with this new clarity, it doesn t matter whether you choose to shun drug use or to embrace its potential as a wondrous human experience: Thanks to Hart s clarity and courage, your eyes will be opened and for the first time, your choice will be informed. Harriet A. Washington, author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

This book is written by a leading drug researcher and neuroscientist who has himself grown up through, and been significantly affected by, the era of the war on drugs. His personal story from acceptance of the status quo to understanding its fundamental flaws permeates both the science and the wisdom that this book projects. One hopes that the political and scientific establishment reads it and reflects on the urgent need for new evidence-based drugs policies. David Nutt, author of Drink? The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health

Like he did in my Netflix cannabis doc, Grass Is Greener, DR. Carl Hart gives you the real-to-real regarding drug use and dismantles all the lies and misinformation we ve been assaulted with for decades. Drug Use for Grown-Ups is a hip, street smart, scholarly yet easy-to-read deep dive into the how and why of illegal drugs that should be required reading from millennials to seniors. Fab 5 Freddy