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Living with Drugs (7th edition) by Michael Gossop Ashgate Publishing Ltd, London, UK, 2013, 292 pp, ISBN: 978-1-4094-4349-0

2013; Wiley; Volume: 108; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/add.12288

1360-0443

Rowdy Yates,

HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk

Those of you who are, like me, long enough in the tooth to do so, might just want to cast their minds back to 1982. This was the year in which actor/comedian John Belushi died of a reported heroin overdose. It was the year that the noted cocaine smuggler, Pablo Escobar, was elected to the Colombian Congress (thus making himself immune to prosecution at home) and simultaneously agreed a deal with General Noriega [then, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative and head of the armed forces, subsequently Military Governor of Panama] for the transhipment of huge quantities of cocaine through that country. It was also the year of the First Ladies. Former US President's wife Betty Ford established the Betty Ford Foundation while Nancy Reagan, with the encouragement of her husband, launched the much-derided ‘Just Say No’ campaign. Just before the Christmas recess of that year, Norman Fowler, Secretary of State for Health and Social Security came to the Houses of Parliament to announce the belated publication of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD)'s report, Treatment and Rehabilitation and the UK Government's intention to respond to that report by establishing a central fund to pump-prime a national network of drug treatment services; and, in that rather remarkable year, Michael Gossop published the first edition of Living With Drugs. The fact that Living With Drugs is now published in its seventh edition, more than 30 years later, may be testament to both its enduring usefulness and the quality of the writing. Re-reading this book after a number of years, I was struck by the coherence and poise of the author's presentation. A huge amount of information is provided within its pages and all set out in a writing style which is remarkable both for its accessibility and élan. I particularly enjoyed the author's dismissal of the term ‘psychotomimetic’ (mimicking psychosis) for hallucinogenics; not only because of its negative connotations, but because it is ‘such an ugly word'! This seventh edition updates previous versions by examining the proliferation of so-called designer drugs and the use of the internet as a source both of drugs and drug information—neither of them being entirely reliable. Early chapters describe the history of drug-taking, beliefs about addiction and how these echo and reflect the social context within which they were formed. Subsequent chapters deal with specific drugs, including alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and hallucinogens, etc. In each chapter, the history of use, the associated mythology, dependence potential and legislation are all covered in a straightforward but balanced way. My personal favourite chapter is undoubtedly the final one, where the human urge to alter perceptions is examined in fascinating detail. At the University of Stirling, we began to offer online accredited courses in drugs and addiction in 1995. By that time, Living With Drugs (then in its third or fourth edition) was already considered a classic work and was a ‘shoe-in’ on our list of core reading for the first of these courses. It remains one of the few items on our reading list that has not been supplanted by a later, more relevant, better-presented publication. This is an extraordinarily comprehensive and extremely readable book and one which I regularly recommend as introductory reading for all my students. On reflection, my position here has changed somewhat. I would argue that this seventh edition ought to be compulsory reading not just for students, but for workers in the addiction field, many of whom think mistakenly that their needs are for something more advanced. This is a field in which there is a huge amount of misinformation, misplaced ideology and simple stubbornness. The need for a systematic examination of the facts and a coherent exploration of the possibilities is an ever-present need. In my view, this is precisely what Living With Drugs offers.