Drug Use for Grownups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear

Drug Use for Grownups is a gripping mix of policy, science, and personal storytelling that makes a compelling argument: that many of the dangers associated with drug use, including addiction, poverty, and violence, have more to do with America’s propensity to criminalize drug users, rather than the effects of drugs themselves.

This mind-expanding manifesto examines the racist anti-drug laws that have disproportionately affected people of colour and those pushed to the margins, offers insight into the many positive effects that mind-altering drugs can offer and calls careful attention to the destructive ideology behind psychedelic exceptionalism: an argument that psychedelic medicines and its’ users should be treated as a special exemption, and as morally above users of other substances.

Hart, a neuroscientists, professor of psychology at Colombia University, and proud drug user, argues that it is completely and perfectly normal to be curious about drugs as a vehicle for consciousness expansion (a sentiment that we share), and proposes an alternate solution: the legalization of all so-called recreational drugs in conjunction with accessible drug purity testing, government regulation, harm reduction education and community supports for those who need them, prompting us to imagine a world where all drug users could live full, productive lives and care for themselves, and for others, free of shame, judgement, and persecution.