America and her drug problem
This Is Your Country on Drugs, by Ryan Grim, Wiley, 2009. $24.95, 272 pg.
Drugs in America sometimes bring to mind Woodstock and Hippies, peace buses and communes, flower power and protests, but in This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America, journalist Ryan Grim transcends these commonly held conceptions to provide a history of drug use from the founding of our nation to the present day. From the Drug War to the author’s own psychedelic narratives, the book entertains. But in its grandiose ambitions as a work of social history, it falls short of coherence.
A Hidden History
Grim presents much surprising information, especially concerning U.S. tolerance of drug-dealing organizations and the effectiveness of drug education programs. It’s difficult to come away with conventional perceptions of the role of the government and other organizations in the effort to reduce drug use in the United States.
In the past seventy years, the U.S. government has worked with drug-dealing organizations when doing so has been in its own interest. During World War II, for example, the U.S. government made a deal with the Mafia, an organization known to make much of its money in the heroin trade. In exchange for information about Axis activity in Sicily and exposure of German spies in Mafia-controlled docks in New York City, authorities turned a blind eye to the mob’s drug trafficking activities and arranged the early release of multiple Mafioso, including Lucky Luciano.
Additionally, Grim challenges the effectiveness of education campaigns. Using the results of several studies, Grim comes to a conclusion likely to resonate with D.A.R.E. graduates – he argues that the D.A.R.E. program is ineffective and, in some cases, actually pushes kids towards drugs. Similar studies are presented in reference to U.S. government anti-drug campaigns, including the famous “Your Brain, Your Brain on Drugs” campaign of the late 1980s.
Tall Tales
Grim’s book is constructed from a wide variety of sources, numerous statistics, and interviews with subjects ranging from DEA officials to drug dealers. Though the factual evidence is at times numbing, Grim handles it skillfully more often than not, and it provides a needed air of credibility for the subject.
While Grim purports to take an objective view of drugs as a journalist and as a social historian, more than once he enters into the gray areas of opinion. He describes his personal experiences of using LSD and ayahuasca and writes about his crack-dealing friend. In his descriptions of hallucinogens and methamphetamines, Grim extols the great achievements of scientists and mathematicians who tripped on acid and detailing the potential benefits of meth, the greatest of which are heightened awareness and increased concentration.
Slippery Subject
The rabbit hole goes deeper, however; the author argues that even when government manages to decrease a drug’s supply, the problem simply shifts. Efforts may effectively target one drug problem, but agencies cannot target the drug market as a whole, and, consequently, another addiction will soon take popularity to meet demand. Grim points to the late 1970s campaign against marijuana. The campaign was effective, but cocaine use surged soon after the anti-pot effort.
Grim’s answer is simply that the U.S. government is playing a “never-ending game of Whac-a-Mole.” As soon as the player whacks one mole, another emerges, and as the game continues, the moles pop up faster and faster. So it is with drugs. Though the government always has worked and will continue to work to eliminate drugs from society, there will always be people wanting illicit substances, Grim, and thanks to the laws of supply and demand, there will always be someone there to produce, market, and sell them. Where This Is Your Country On Drugs falls short is in establishing a convincing explanation for the popularity of addictive substances, resting on these just-so stories and the author’s personal positive experiences, the latter taking away from the objective goals of the book.
This Is Your Country on Drugs doesn’t lack for ambition, detailing the history of drug use in the United States since the banning of drunkenness by the colony of Virginia in 1619 to the present, and Grim effectively uses statistics and interviews to support most of his arguments. However, the author fails to prove that drugs are the “bellwether” of American culture and linked to the basic needs and moods of each generation.