Social Psychology of Drug Use

Reviews the book, Society and Drugs: Social and Cultural Observations. Drugs I. Students and Drugs: College and High School Observations. Drugs II by Richard H. Blum (1969). These volumes represent the first major attempt to gain perspectives on all psychoactive drug use in a great variety of social settings and individuals. The 36 chapters are satisfactorily coherent, even though highly heterogenous. As for limitations, there are none which should decrease one's interest in the book. For example, despite the word drugs in both titles, the books are really about drug use and do not deal with some of the topics so aptly discussed by Bernard Barber in his 1967 Drugs and Society. Neverthless, the 32 members of the team have produced a work which deserves very wide distribution. There is no existing book quite like it and probably will be none in the near future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)