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The drug abuse epidemic of recent years has brought in its wake mass panic on the part of educators and parents. School principals typically arrange for the local policeman and an ex-addict from the
local Synanon or similar group to come to meetings to put the 'fear of God' into the youngsters. It has become progressively clear that many of these programs have titillated the youngsters' curiosity or created a challenge for their counterphobic and defiant bravado. Those educators who would have liked to give a more constructive presentation found no teaching aids or books to use.
Kaplan and Wieder have given us a book which can be recommended unequivocally to such educators. The authors do not avoid the complexity of the problem of drug dependence. Yet their book is direct and organized with commendable clarity. They delineate three categories of drug users: Type 1 'takes drugs for pleasure reasons'; Type 2 'wants to relieve distressing and painful psychological states'; and Type 3 'takes drugs to escape the severe suffering of a chronically painful ego state'. The various aspects of the problems of drug dependence are then discussed with reference to these three types of drug users, underlining the authors' attention to the psychology of the user rather than to the drugs themselves.
The authors deal intelligently and with psychoanalytically-derived insight with such controversial problems as methadone maintenance, the participation of ex-addicts in alcoholism clinics, and the enormous nation-wide chain of drug clinics. Courageously they recommend:
Disband 'drug programs.' Although they undeniably help some people, the over-all results add up to a pitiable return on a huge investment. These programs divert scarce professionals and dollars from more solidly conceived projects and their emphasis is wrong.
Instead, revitalize 'youth programs.' Regroup professional and other trained personnel into integrated mental health facilities. These should be the first