A Brief History of Drugs: From the Stone Age to the Stoned Age

I believe Antonio has nailed the issue and the true interests behind the scenes: The obscure desire to control and profit from prohibition by dark government in alliance with religious hierarchies, the military and private corporations. The failed war on drugs is really a war against the individual and collective liberties. His historical and philosophical perspective is useful for anyone trying to understand the core of the matter. The book is well documented and fun to read. Congratulations to Antonio Escohotado.

If you are looking for a good world history of drugs, this is the best I've been able to find. It's not a perfect book. For example, a bibliography would be nice. Given the book is a translation, the writing is sometimes clunky. However, the material is hard to match. I really learned a lot about the topic. If the complete Spanish version had been translated into English, I would jump right into that as well. Read and enjoy!

Escohotado does a great job at reviewing the changing status of various substances throughout the world and throughout the ages. Mind altering substances have fascinated and frightened humanity since the dawn of time, and have most likely been pivotal in the emergence of shamanism and primitive religions. Contrary to pagan religions, monotheisms have been generally suspicious of mind alteration, leading to various forms of prohibition throughout the ages, up to the temperance movements in the 19th century US, and global prohibition of certain psychoactive substances and the infamous War on Drugs in the 20th century. The end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21 century have witnessed a spectacular return of the repressed, with the upsurge of narco-trafficking and illegal drugs on one hand, and the explosion of psychopharmacology on the other. The book could use some updating as things have changed quite a bit since it publication, and prohibitionism is coming under growing pressure. For some update, I would suggest  World War D - The Case against prohibitionism, roadmap to controlled re-legalization . To the best of my knowledge, "World War-D" is the only book looking beyond the War on Drugs, and explaining the potential pitfalls and benefits of alternatives.

The author did a magnificent job of writing and editing down this version of his larger work written in Spanish only! It makes me want to also read his larger book on this subject!

Interesting! Left thebest bit to the last chapter, sea eye aye....

A modern classic.

Great book, timely delivery.

Very good read, enlightening to know about the history of the War on Drugs and the origins of popular illicit drugs

Escohotado carefully pulls apart past and present orthodox thinking on drug use. What is really admirable in this piece is the way he avoids a simplistic or moralistic viewpoint. He labours to tell the story, covering all the angles. Amazingly, for such a short book, you get a broad overview of the subject but with much incisive detail. I especially enjoyed his coverage of the opium wars which he links brilliantly with the US government's attitude to drugs in the years after alcohol prohibition. There is a lot of detail on the persecution of drug users by the Catholic church from medieval times through to the conquest of the New World too.All in all, a great little book which hints at the depth of Escohotado's "Historia de las Drogas". This was originally published in three volumes and is now available as one, huge tome in Spanish. I only wish my Spanish was up to reading it.This brings me to the matter of the translation, which is atrocious. The translator, Kenneth A. Symington, does not seem to have the first idea of how to render the text into readable English. All too often, I could identify the original Spanish grammatical structure in the English text, as if he had simply translated word for word. It makes for a very heavy read. At times, I lost track of the subject of the sentence, as the translation rambled incoherently on. However, I have ignored the incompetent translation when giving the star rating...I really hope that if the American publishers decide to produce any more of Escohotado's work, they'll find a different translator. It deserves better than this.

Good quality

A good read