MIND-ALTERING DRUGS: THE SCIENCE OF SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE

1062

Book Reviews

© 2006 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2006 Society for the Study of Addiction

Addiction,

101

, 1060–1062

addiction, insanity and homelessness from historicaland contemporary perspectives. At the same time, itoffers a crucial insight into the process of development,funding and implementation of innovative treatmentprogrammes in the United States. The detailed ethno-graphic description considering hundreds of internaland external determinants shows once more that treat-ment of addiction and insanities must not be reduced totechnical levels.

JACEK MOSKALEWICZ

Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, Warsaw, Poland

MIND-ALTERING DRUGS: THE SCIENCE OF SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE

MITCH EARLEYWINE (ed.)New York, Oxford University Press Inc., USA, 2005, 412pp, £29.99 $49.95, ISBN 0195165314 (hardback)

Nature and human ingenuity have provided drugs thatwill induce, fairly reliably, most of the repertoire of possi-ble mental states. These can be achieved by other means,including exertion, meditation and sensory deprivation,but ‘liquor is quicker’.

Those devising policy, academics and clinicians, areall inclined to shuffle embarrassedly around this elephantin the room to concentrate on the epidemiology, ill con-sequences or most efficacious methods for changing pat-terns of use. If you agree with me that a careful review ofdrug effects through a scientific lens is long overdue, thenthis ambitious book just may be for you.

The editor Mitch Earleywine’s mission is: ‘attending to[drug] effects and cultivating a vocabulary for describingthem . . .’. This follows a noble tradition. In his concep-tion of the language of poetry Wordsworth drew on con-temporary brain science (including Sir Humphrey Davy’sinvestigations into nitrous oxide—see chapter 12) toargue that the metaphorical and vitally expressive pow-ers of human speech emerge from a mind that is ‘embod-ied, organic, and emotive’ [1].

Drawing a parallel with wine connoisseurs, Earley-wine suggests that greater attention to the nuances of thesensory experience will lead to smaller doses (of can-nabis) and increased safety. Unfortunately for thisargument, wordsmiths are not notable for their abstemi-ousness and with the possible exception of Bill Clinton,most people inhale their Chateau Skunk rather than puff-ing it straight into a silver pot.

The central problem of the task is the inadequacy oflanguage for describing the inner world. Does anythingpeople say about their drug experience add to under-standing, or is it simply a

post hoc

fumbling after inade-quate verbal metaphors for experiences that almost bydefinition have no meaningful words to describe them?My suspicion is that a language tool which evolved tofacilitate the coordinated hurling of rocks at mammothsmay simply be unfit for purpose. So, a brief experiment:

Take two minutes out from reading and try to describe in words what you experience when you drink a cup of coffee. What is of relevance: grinding the beans, push-ing the cafetière plunger, offering the steaming cup to others, the smell, the taste, the warmth of it in your hand and throat, subtle changes in your level of alert-ness, palpitations? Are your words embodied, organic and emotive? Which elements of the experience sur-vive a change to decaf, or the substitution of a caffeine pill?

In an eclectic, sometimes holistic, review of most of thewidely used drugs this book wrestles with a wealth ofscientific material. What emerges cannot always bedescribed as light reading. I find more than about 25 ref-erences to the page indigestible, but cannot complain ofbeing short-changed. Some authors move a little too farfrom the editor’s intentions for my taste, but alwaysmaintained my interest. My main editorial criticism is thelack of framing chapters on methodological questions,philosophical issues and some form of concluding over-view. These omissions lead to repetition across chaptersand, to me at least, a sense of incompleteness. The textitself is clear and error-free and the volume is pleasinglyproduced.

Or as Earleywine might prefer—from my tastingnotes, this is an elegantly presented crisp black-and-white book, with good legs. To be nibbled at by the firerather than quaffed on the beach. While repaying theclosest attention it generally goes down easily with a lin-gering afterglow. Not a good accompaniment to food.Psychoactive drugs probably will not aid its digestion.

ANDREW MCBRIDE

The Rectory Centre, Rectory Road, Oxford, UK

Reference

1. McKusick J. C.

Romanticism on line

. 2003. Available at:http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/2003/v/n31/008701ar.html [accessed 18 May 2006]