You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In Drugs and Youth Robert Coles, a child psychiatrist, Joseph Brenner, a psychiatrist and internist, and Dermot Meagher, an attorney and former district attorney, present in clear-cut language the history of drugs, the laws that surround narcotic abuse in this country, and the medical and psychiatric facets of drug abuse. Many books have crossed my desk over the past few years dealing with “the drug problem” and “the addict.” This book is one of the few that approaches this critical concern of our society with realism and intellectual honesty.
The authors bring diverse backgrounds to their task and ably discuss the history of the various drugs, give their chemical and pharmacological properties, and present in great detail the psychological and behavioral effects of drug use. They are equally explicit on LSD, mescaline, the amphetamines, and cannabis indica (marijuana).
Their chapter “Who Takes Marijuana and Why” is well illustrated with case histories not only of young residents of a northern ghetto, but also of youths from middle-class suburbs. The conversations with young people (slightly edited) that the authors record are real and add a great deal to our understanding of what and how young people think. The authors correctly comment in their chapter “Growing Up” that it is simply not enough to say that youths take drugs because they feel anxious, lonely, or afraid. These reflections are oversimplified and really add little to our understanding. Rather, what is required of all of us who work with young people is to really listen to what they have to say and to comply with their wish that we “come across” and “level” with them. We therapists readily fall into pits of our own making. We believe we have answers, formulate the dynamics of the addict, and present these to our colleagues at conventions without taking time to verify our ideas with the youths themselves. The authors ask us to address ourselves to questions such as, What do the kids really want? What do th