Ceremonial chemistry : the ritual persecution of drugs, addicts, and pushers
Thomas Szasz suggests that governments have overstepped their bounds in labeling and prohibiting certain drugs as "dangerous" substances and incarcerating drug "addicts" in order to cure them. Szasz asserts that such policies scapegoat illegal drugs and the persons who use and sell them, and discourage the breaking of drug habits by pathologizing drug use as "addiction." Reaers will find in Szasz's arguments a cogent and committed response to a worldwide debate
Print Book, English, ©2003
Rev. ed., 1st Syracuse University Press ed View all formats and editions
Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, N.Y., ©2003
xxi, 290 pages ; 21 cm
9780815607687, 0815607687
52166410
The discovery of drug addiction
The scapegoat as drug and the drug as scapegoat
Medicine: the faith of the faithless
Communions, holy and unholy
Licit and illicit healing: persecutions for witchcraft and drugcraft
Opium and Orientals: the model American scapegoats
Drugs and devils: the conversion cure of Malcolm X
Food abuse and foodaholism: from soul watching to weight watching
Missionary medicine: holy wars on unholy drugs
Cures and controls: panaceas and panapathogens
Temptation and temperence: the moral perspective reconsidered
The control of conduct: authority versus autonomy
"Originally published in 1974 by Anchor Press, Doubleday; revised edition published in 1985 by Learning Publications. An expanded revised edition reprinted at Syracuse University Press by arrangement with the author"--Title page verso