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Article: Looking For A Fix
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- August 18, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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HEP-CATS, NARCS, AND PIPE DREAMS
A History of America's
Romance with Illegal Drugs
By Jill Jonnes
Scribner. 510 pp. $30
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure
By Dan Baum
Little, Brown. 416 pp. $24.95
FOR MORE THAN 100 years Americans have had an up-and-down love
affair with dangerous drugs. The cycle begins with infatuation,
graduates to obsession and invariably culminates in disaster. Each
time it happens, the nation stumbles, at first failing to recognize
the dangers, then minimizing them, then belatedly launching a
scattershot "war on drugs" that often seems as debilitating as the
scourge itself.
The failure of the United States ...