It has been more than twenty years since President Nixon declared the War on Drugs. In On Drugs, David Lenson
delivers a scathing indictment of this war as an effort based, like all attempts to eradicate "getting high",
on an incomplete understanding of human nature. From lotus-eaters to hippies to crackheads, he contends, history
has shown the state's inability to legislate the bloodstreams of its citizens. Lenson ventures beyond conventional
genres to view the drug debate from the largely forgotten perspective of those who use drugs. In successfully walking
the fine line between the antidrug hysteria of the 1980s and an advocacy of drug use, Lenson shatters the ban on
debate regarding drugs enforced in the "Just Say No" campaign and reveals the myriad ways "straight
society" demonizes the drug user. After considering several specific issues associated with drug use - including
sex, violence, and money - Lenson concludes with his vision of the end of the Drug War by questioning the sense
in condemning millions of Americans to lives of concealment and deceit.