Summary of Dr. Carl L. Hart's Drug Use for Grown-Ups

By IRB Media

Get the Summary of Dr. Carl L. Hart's Drug Use for Grown-Ups in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: Dr. Carl L. Hart, Ziff Professor at Columbia University and former chair of the Department of Psychology, is one of the world's preeminent experts on the effects of so-called recreational drugs on the human mind and body. Dr. Hart is open about the fact that he uses drugs himself, in a happy balance with the rest of his full and productive life as a colleague, husband, father, and friend. In Drug Use for Grown-Ups, he draws on decades of research and his own personal experience to argue definitively that the criminalization and demonization of drug use--not drugs themselves--have been a tremendous scourge on America, not least in reinforcing this country's enduring structural racism.

Dr. Hart did not always have this view. He came of age in one of Miami's most troubled neighborhoods at a time when many ills were being laid at the door of crack cocaine. His initial work as a researcher was aimed at proving that drug use caused bad outcomes. But one problem kept cropping up: the evidence from his research did not support his hypothesis. From inside the massively well-funded research arm of the American war on drugs, he saw how the facts did not support the ideology. The truth was dismissed and distorted in order to keep fear and outrage stoked, the funds rolling in, and Black and brown bodies behind bars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638154341

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

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Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Dr. Carl L. Hart had to confront the systematic inequality that drives drug charges in America when he volunteered to teach classes at a local prison, as his students were mostly black men. He taught them that the war on drugs was really just a war on certain people.

#2

The war on drugs’ was officially declared by President Richard Nixon in 1971, with the impossible goal of eradicating all recreational drug use. Instead, drug use has remained the same since 1981, with certain races and neighborhoods heavily targeted for drug problems.

#3

The recent opioid crisis has shifted the general population’s ideas on drug users, with calls for treatment and rehabilitation instead of mass incarceration. However, white Americans are the ones normally seen as primary opioid users.

#4

Anti-drug laws have always disproportionately affected minority communities. James Baldwin, an American author and activist, was able to foresee this playing out when the Anti-Drug Abuse Act went into effect in 1986. He correctly predicted that