Print
Email
Share
Publications & Resources
The Drug Policy Alliance publishes a range of materials, including reports and fact sheets on drug policy issues. We also have a large collection of online materials devoted to drugs and drug policy.
Published by DPA
Online Resource Library
Recommended Books
Judging Addicts: Drug Courts and Coercion in the Justice System
By Rebecca Tiger
The number of people incarcerated in the U.S. now exceeds 2.3 million, due in part to the increasing criminalization of drug use: over 25% of people incarcerated in jails and prisons are there for drug offenses. Judging Addicts examines this increased criminalization of drugs and the medicalization of addiction in the U.S. by focusing on drug courts, where defendants are sent to drug treatment instead of prison. Rebecca Tiger explores how advocates of these courts make their case for what they call “enlightened coercion,” detailing how they use medical theories of addiction to justify increased criminal justice oversight of defendants who, through this process, are defined as both “sick” and “bad.”
Tiger shows how these courts fuse punitive and therapeutic approaches to drug use in the name of a “progressive” and “enlightened” approach to addiction. She critiques the medicalization of drug users, showing how the disease designation can complement, rather than contradict, punitive approaches, demonstrating that these courts are neither unprecedented nor unique, and that they contain great potential to expand punitive control over drug users. Tiger argues that the medicalization of addiction has done little to stem the punishment of drug users because of a key conceptual overlap in the medical and punitive approaches—that habitual drug use is a problem that needs to be fixed through sobriety. Judging Addicts presses policymakers to implement humane responses to persistent substance use that remove its control entirely from the criminal justice system and ultimately explores the nature of crime and punishment in the U.S. today.
The New Science of Psychedelics: At the Nexus of Culture, Consciousness, and Spirituality
By David Jay Brown
For as long as humanity has existed, we have used psychedelics to raise our levels of consciousness and seek healing--first in the form of visionary plants such as cannabis and now with the addition of human-created psychedelics such as LSD and MDMA. These substances have inspired spiritual awakenings, artistic and literary works, technological and scientific innovation, and even political revolutions. But what does the future hold for humanity--and can psychedelics help take us there?
Sharing insights from his discussions with luminaries such as Terence McKenna, Edgar Mitchell, Candace Pert, Deepak Chopra, Andrew Weil, Jerry Garcia, Albert Hofmann, Annie Sprinkle, and Rupert Sheldrake, author David Jay Brown explores the revelations brought about through his psychedelic experiences and his work with visionaries of the psychedelic and scientific communities. He investigates the role of psychedelics in lucid dreaming, time travel, sex and pleasure enhancement, morphic field theory, the survival of consciousness after death, encounters with nonhuman beings, and the interface between science and spirituality. Examining the ability of psychedelic drugs to incite creativity, neurogenesis, and the evolution of consciousness, he explains that they are messengers from the plant world designed to help elevate our awareness and sense of interconnectedness.
Revealing not only what psychedelics can teach us about ourselves and the world around us, Brown also shows how they are preparing humanity for a future of enlightened minds and worlds beyond our solar system.
Beyond the Will of God: A Jill Simpson Mystery
By David Biddle
Somewhere in the heart of Central Missouri mysterious music filters through night-darkened farmland. The dead body of an Amish teenager launches a police investigation that leads to a great deal more than a simple homicide. Elvis is seen roaming the countryside. A young, drug-addled clairvoyant arrives in the area, confused about the power improvisational psychedelic music has over human consciousness.
Police Sergeant Jill Simpson teams up with Philadelphia tabloid reporter Franklin Harris to tie all of these issues together. They will stumble into mysteries far more important than anything they could have imagined.
Beyond the Will of God is a murder mystery wrapped in a thriller wrapped in magical realism… way off the grid, but asking important questions about the meaning of life and what we may have forgotten about the power of the human mind.
