Drug Addiction in Youth: Edited by Ernest Harms, Ph.D. New York: Pergamon Press, 1965. 210 pp.

This volume presents a comprehensive survey of drug addiction among adolescents. It is a series of contributions by psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers who have devoted many years of service in the search for a solution to the numerous aspects of this disease. Typically of such books, it lacks cohesiveness, and some of the conclusions are repetitive. Much of it is available in the published psychiatric and psychologic literature.

The editor regrets the inconclusiveness of the text, which nevertheless has the value of re-emphasizing the futility of a punitive approach to this problem. The authors advocate medical and psychiatric treatment and re-education, and make a plea for a broader understanding of the 'anthropological, sociological, ethnological, and ontogenetic' sources.

Some of the topics have special merit: the development of narcotic addiction among the newborn; inhalation addiction to commercial solvents; the basic failure of Riverside Hospital in New York City as a 'therapeutic community'; a history of 'Narcotics Anonymous'; and a comprehensive account of rehabilitation.