Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts, and Pushers

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Overview

The "ritual persecution" of drugs and drug users must be seen as similar to the persecution of other scapegoats such as witches and madmen, according to Szasz (emeritus, psychiatry, State U. of New York) in the 1974 text he considers "to be one of my best works." He condemns the "war on drugs," as the U.S. government is still conducting it, as a form of coercion and colonialism based more on ritual than on any real medical or scientific reason. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., ...
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More About This Book

Overview

The "ritual persecution" of drugs and drug users must be seen as similar to the persecution of other scapegoats such as witches and madmen, according to Szasz (emeritus, psychiatry, State U. of New York) in the 1974 text he considers "to be one of my best works." He condemns the "war on drugs," as the U.S. government is still conducting it, as a form of coercion and colonialism based more on ritual than on any real medical or scientific reason. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780815607687
  • Publisher: Syracuse University Press
  • Publication date: 7/28/2003
  • Edition description: REV
  • Pages: 290
  • Sales rank: 1,198,799
  • Product dimensions: 5.34 (w) x 8.24 (h) x 0.69 (d)

Table of Contents

Preface
Preface to the Original Edition
Acknowledgments
Introduction
I Pharmakos: The Scapegoat
1 The Discovery of Drug Addiction 3
2 The Scapegoat as Drug and the Drug as Scapegoat 19
3 Medicine: The Faith of the Faithless 29
4 Communions, Holy and Unholy 39
II Pharmacomythology: Medicine as Magic
5 Licit and Illicit Healing: Persecutions for Witchcraft and Drugcraft 61
6 Opium and Orientals: The Model American Scapegoats 75
7 Drugs and Devils: The Conversion Cure of Malcolm X 89
8 Food Abuse and Foodaholism: From Soul Watching to Weight Watching 105
III Pharmacracy: Medicine as Social Control
9 Missionary Medicine: Holy Wars on Unholy Drugs 125
10 Cures and Controls: Panaceas and Panapathogens 137
11 Temptation and Temperance: The Moral Perspective Reconsidered 153
12 The Control of Conduct: Authority versus Autonomy 175
Afterword 183
App A Synoptic History of the Promotion and Prohibition of Drugs 195
Addendum to the App.: The "War on Drugs," 1974-2003 225
Notes 253
Selected Bibliography 273
Index 279
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