Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results

In this witty and comprehensive treatise we follow Kleiman, lecturer in public policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, as he makes his way through ancient opium dens, Colombian coca fields, liquor stores, house parties and DEA offices. An urbane, informed observer, the author takes note of drug-trade economics, inconsistencies of government eradication efforts and frailties of human psychology and physiology in a surprisingly entertaining yet lucid analysis of drug addiction and its consequences for individuals and society. Kleiman makes a case for a middle road between prohibition and permissiveness, i.e., for taxes, regulations and personal-use licenses that might avoid the pitfalls of criminalization. He has many interesting suggestions: the deterrent value of a $1 tax on drinks and fining juveniles for smoking. And we hear from experts like Sholom Aleichem, who quips, ``An innkeeper loves a drunkard, but not for a son-in-law.'' (Apr.)