Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered

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"A broad spectrum antibiotic for Western society's timidity about psychedelic drugs. An exceptionally well-balanced scientific discussion of every aspect— from mysticism to pharmacology to social implications. . . . It is a courageous book which simultaneously succeeds both for popular and for scientific audiences." —CARL SAGAN

"I don't recall ever seeing a single book treat in so scholarly yet lucid a fashion all the historical, social, and scientific aspects of drugs with accuracy, balance, and thoughtful reflection. Regardless of whether one agrees with the authors about their recommendations for social and legal policy, their thoughtful treatment of the subject more than justifies their right to recommend changes in public policies." —SOLOMON H. SNYDER, M.D.

Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

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Front jacket flap $15,95

Back jacket flap

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Thus, in a lively, enlightening, yet thoroughly responsible way Grinspoon and Bakalar succeed in bringing real information and balanced understanding to a field where for many years only passions and polemics have held sway.

It is these issues that are addressed by the authors—whose previous work, most notably Cocaine (Basic Books, 1976), has established them as rare voices of sanity on the vexed questions of what constitutes abuse of and what the possible proper use of drugs. In clear and sprightly prose Grinspoon and Bakalar review the chemistry of psychedelics, their psychoneurological effects, and the history of man's experience with them from preindustrial times down to the present. Finally and most originally, the authors call on the actual testimony of those who have used psychedelics to assess the potential and the possible enormous value of these drugs, properly controlled, for the study of human consciousness. 0979

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LESTER GRINSPOON, M.D., is a psychoanalyst on the staff of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is the author of, among other works, Marihuana Reconsidered (1971) and (with J. R. Ewalt and R. I. Shader) of Schizophrenia: Pharmacotherapy and Psychotherapy (1972). His most recent book, also written with James B. Bakalar, is Cocaine: A Drug and Its Social Evolution (Basic Books, 1976).

PHOTO: SUSAN P. ALEXANDER

This useful and fascinating book by two of the world's leading experts on drug use and abuse is the first to provide the general reader with a comprehensive and authoritative survey of what is known about the nature and the quality of all known psychedelic substances. Oddly, say the authors, although psychedelics have been used for thousands •f years, both medically and religiously, and have been the subject of more than twenty years of clinical and experimental investigation, astonishingly little attention has been paid to the real scientific and intellectual issues raised by these complex and interesting substances.

PHOTO: SUSAN P. ALEXANDER

Lester Grinspoon James B. Bakalar

B. BAKALAR is a member of the Massachusetts Bar and a Lecturer in Law in the Department of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. He is co-author, with Lester Grinspoon, of the second edition of Marihuana Reconsidered (1977) and Cocaine: A Drug and Its Social Evolution (Basic Books, 1976).

JAMES

J A C K E T DESIGN BY W I L L I A M DAVIS