Pubdate: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 Source: Washington Post (DC) Copyright: 2004 The Washington Post Company Contact: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491 Author: Martin Torgoff Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) THE GREAT STONED AGE I very much appreciate Nick Gillespie's characterization of my book, Can't Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945-2000 (Book World, May 23), as "brave," along with his opinion of it as "a generally successful effort, in many ways as pleasantly and as richly intoxicating as a double hit of Humboldt County, Calif.'s finest." But I must vehemently disagree with his conclusion that the book is "a bummer -- maybe even a bad trip" because I happened to land in a 12-step recovery fellowship. As Gillespie describes it, my personal experience with drugs veered "between use and abuse," was "nothing if not unrepresentative," and its inclusion in my book "suggests that a truly measured discussion of American drug use is yet to come." However, I state unequivocally in the book that the vast majority of people who use drugs do not become addicts. Gillespie's notion that Can't Find My Way Home is ultimately a "downer" because I end up happy but abstinent is revealing. Some critics of the drug war and proponents of reform are obviously discomfited by addiction because it is so frequently cited as the raison d'etre for prohibition; they are, moreover, critical of the "disease concept" and the increasing influence of the recovery movement. No doubt Gillespie would have been far more disposed to view my account of the American experience with illegal drugs as "measured" had it ended with the following words: "Today I remain a deeply committed secular humanist/rationalist/libertarian, perfectly capable of controlling my drug use, who uses marijuana recreationally, on occasion, and always in a moderate and responsible manner." But such was not, alas, where my journey took me. The point of my book is that we must start telling the truth about drugs, and the two brief chapters that tell my personal story convey my truth; in those places I speak for myself and no one else. The view that my own experience with drug use, abuse and addiction makes this book, "for all its many merits," any less "measured" than anyone else's might be reflects a bias on Gillespie's part that is, in its own way, every bit as deep-seated and distorted as the bias of the prohibitionist. MARTIN TORGOFF New York, NY Nick Gillespie replies: Martin Torgoff misquotes me: I wrote that his account of his own drug experiences veered between "between abuse and abstinence," not "between use and abuse." Like the prohibitionists he rightly criticizes, Torgoff apparently has difficulty conceptualizing drug use that does not lead to extremes even as he recognizes that most people's experiences with illegal drugs are rarely so polarized. Certainly it's legitimate to wish that a book about the considerable role of drugs in postwar America -- even one as interesting and accomplished as Can't Find My Way Home -- might frame the discussion in a way that paid closer attention to the moderate way in which most people actually consume illegal substances. I'm glad to learn that Torgoff is "happy but abstinent," and I'm confident that he, too, would rather live in a country where those of us who would prefer to continue to use drugs might do so legally. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake