Drugs without the hot air: Making sense of legal and illegal drugs

My dad is not a leftie...(like me) he is a scientist and curious about everything. He really really enjoyed this book said it was thought provoking and well written.

This is a comprehensive and well written book on all aspects of drugs. It is comprehensive in that it includes information on all drugs; recreational, medicinal, legal and illegal, everything from coffee to crack. It covers everything from the prehistory of drug taking to the present day 'war on drugs', with particular emphasis on drug policy in the UK, pointing out some of the unintended negative side effects of this policy, and also some of its inconsistencies. For example, he points out that tobacco and alcohol are drugs that are much more dangerous than many illegal drugs. I found his analysis of the place of tobacco and alcohol in our drug culture particularly engaging. Nutt strives to be scientific and factual. He calls for policy to be based on science and the facts, and for the public, young people and their parents to be armed with accurate information about the risks and benefits of drug taking. The last chapter - on what to tell our children - is particularly useful. The book is well researched and referenced, and also has a useful index with definitions of the words indexed. In spite of its thoroughness and basis in science, it is very readable, being aimed at the general reader. No prior knowledge of the subject is assumed, and a well motivated teenager should be able to read it without difficulty. So there you are, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, read this book!! If only..........

I have been following Professor David Nutt, that is his work and contributions in the media, for a few years now. I see him as a genuine likeable person who does his job without a hidden agenda. He speaks facts, not propaganda. After all, that is what one would expect from a scientist. This book is a real page-turner and a must-read for anyone who is interested in the topic of legal/illegal drug use. It provides plenty of detail about the history, chemistry, effects of drugs, international/UK laws, statistics, research, etc in order to enable the reader to appreciate the correct perspective BUT without being 'too heavy.' Expect to read some trully sad life stories and to find out why the war on drugs is complete madness. The muppets in the present and future governments should read this book before wasting another day in the office. In fact, parents and teenagers should read it, too, in order to get a proper overview of the topic.I found the chapters dealing with tobacco and alcohol to be the most fascinating. Where scaremongering and prohibition don't work, a commonsense approach is needed. This book will answer a lot of your questions and will urge you to ask some more.

This should be required reading for policy makers. Facts without hype or hysteria, and a lot of useful information and suggestions that could save lives and reduce harm of all kinds - not least from what is currently society's most harmful (overall) drug: alcohol.Very readable, enlightening and a useful book for everyone, since almost everyone uses drugs of some kind. You may not think so, because we arbitrarily divide drugs into those that are legal and those that are illegal. You may not even think of the legal ones as drugs, (e.g. alcohol, tobacco, caffeine), but they are. And you could be forgiven for thinking that the legal drugs must be much less harmful than the illegal ones. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn the truth about what they put into their bodies and the true potential for harm (or otherwise) to self, loved ones and wider society.

This is a great book containing real scientific data on the physical and social effects of drugs, in the real world. It's very understandable and easy to read, without shying away from the science. Most importantly, it's book about the real world, where some people do take drugs (some even enjoy it!) and policies that rely on stopping all drug use (except alcohol and tobacco, which somehow don't count), simply aren't going to fly.Anybody involved in drugs policy should read this book to get some proper evidence on which to base their opinions. Anyone taking (or considering taking) any kind of drug (that included alcohol and tobacco) should read this book to get an idea of the relative risks of different drugs.

I'd heard great things about this book before i started reading it. Professor Nutt does a great job of describing the history, pharmacokinetics, risks and cultural ties of most common drugs.He provides great insight into drugs policy, especially in the U.K and the flaws and limitations of the system.I am a fast reader and this book took me longer than expected to finish as the information provided does require some digesting!

Am informative book that easy to read for those who may not know the scientific background of the drugs. Highly recommended book

What better person to write a book on drugs than one of the world's foremost authorities in the subject? Prof. David Nutt did a brilliant job at explaining, in a very accessible and engaging manner, the latest scientific evidence there is on drugs and the disconnect between this evidence and drugs legislation, particularly in the UK.