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

Szasz, Thomas Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1556910193 ISBN 13: 9781556910197

Publisher: Learning Pubns, 1985

Synopsis

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."" Readers will find in Szasz's arguments a cogent and committed response to a worldwide debate.

About this title

Review

"This highly original and fully appropriate title, something we have come to expect from Szasz's books, heralds an excellent sociological analysis of man's past and present relationships with drugs....Szasz takes the reader through a religious scenario as imaginatively symbolic and insightfully analytic as any morality play can be."

About the Author

Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) was professor of psychiatry emeritus at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York and adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, Washington, DC. He was a prominent figure in the anti-psychiatry movement and a critic of the moral and scientific foundation of psychiatry.

Edition details

• Publisher: Learning Pubns
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1556910193
• ISBN 13: 9781556910197
• Binding: Paperback