Sunday, August 2, 2009

Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to their History, Chemistry, Use, and Abuse Review


Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to Their History, Chemistry, Use and Abuse (Review)
Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to Their History, Chemistry, Use and Abuse, is an interesting book. After reading it, I learned a lot I did not previously know about certain types of drugs. Also, I learned about what to do in case of an overdose of said drugs. Overall, it was a extremely educational experience reading the book and I would absolutely recommend it to be on the list of books to read next year.
In Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to Their History, Chemistry, Use and Abuse the book is organized in sections describing the health effects of drugs, the drug history, chemical makeup, along with many others. The author provides a section on the physiology of the brain and its reaction to chemicals. The book also thoroughly covers drugs with one detailed chapter for every single drug type you could imagine. Each chapter also includes a history of the drug, a personality profile of the type of people who use said drug, chemical characteristics of it, the drug's withdrawal signs once use is stopped or discontinued, long-term health problems of use of the drug, and emergency care information just in case one has an overdose.
The book concludes with resources for self-help, websites that provide information about drugs, and a list of drug abuse and treatment centers spread out all over in the United States. A bibliography for each chapter is also a big help for those who want to learn more about certain drugs more than what the book has already listed.
In the book, there is a section for basically every type of drug, as well as an intro with drug history and current drug laws, and ends with the question, will drugs be used? The author then says that that is not the question we should be asking. 95% of the United States uses some form of psychoactive drug. The real question is, which will be used?
Throughout the book, the author talks about how when certain drugs are criminalized, people turn to other types of drugs. For example, in the 1930s during the prohibition of alcohol, the use of marijuana soared in the U.S. hit its highest levels. Also, when the government cracked down on the use of drugs like cocaine among teens, the use of ecstasy and other drugs rose dramatically.
The beginning of the book also describes in not a lot of detail `legalized' drugs such as caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and nutmeg among others. Schedule 1 & 2 drugs are described in the book, with the latter group being about amphetamines like speed (meth) and others. Illegal Drugs includes over 178 different drugs and descriptions of them. This includes drugs ranging from LSD to Rohypnol the date rape drug. It is very well illustrated and contains at the end, an informative as well as lengthy bibliography.


Buy it here now!

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