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A review by letitiaharmon
High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know about Drugs and Society by Carl L. Hart
3.0
It is rare that the first paragraph of a nonfiction book is riveting enough to draw you in, and yet Dr. Hart's introduction immediately captured my attention. As it continued, I realized to my disappointment that it was much more memoir than it was scientific discourse or social science critique, although that is certainly in there. And you can blame my rating primarily on my dislike of the memoir genre. I find that Hart, like most auto-biographers, does not know what to share and what to leave off, pulling me into stories about his childhood and sexual exploits that don't interest me. What I wanted was more of that first paragraph.
But here's what is really fabulous about the book: Hart is an extremely clear and talented writer, who weaves social science and physical science into an understanding of systemic oppression and injustice. He is able to clearly discern social patterns and rules of status that set people apart, including how he was able to achieve status within his own community, and then utilized that skill to enhance his status in a white-dominated scientific field. That was incredibly interesting and self-aware.
I'm 100% on board with Hart concerning the necessity to change drug laws, and that enforcement is biased, inequitable, and the "War on Drugs" resulted in a school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately affected black teenagers, even though white ones use and sell with greater frequency. I agree the laws and entire justice system need to change. Where he loses me in his arguments, is when he almost seems to brush aside any attempts at substance abuse prevention, calling them misleading and uninformed. He also leans heavy against the idea of substances as being addictive at all. And while we in the social sciences also know that the environment of a user is the biggest indicator for substance abuse, I find his assertion that addiction just doesn't generally happen hard to swallow. I don't know how you explain the opioid crisis, for example. Here is a narcotic dependency that affects people from all walks of life, which is one of the reasons it's getting so much attention. Poverty, behavior modeling, lack of education, do not cause opioid addiction; chemical dependency causes it. At least, that is the only conclusion I can see given the evidence.
My other beef with this book is that I don't think Hart has completely acknowledged or eradicated his own attitudes of toxic masculinity. He seems a little too interested in recounting his sexual prowess. He even uses the term "conquests" for women he slept with. At no point in his writing do I see him regretting his attitudes toward women, or speaking of them with any credible respect. Even when he confronts the reality that he conceived a child as a teenager, all of his sympathy is reserved for the child that resulted, not for the life of the mother. A life he undoubtedly altered through impregnation. Yet he never mentions her or the hardships she would have faced.
What I do love, once I get past his misogynistic tone, is his challenge to traditional thinking, and an explanation of science that throws previous understandings of addiction into question. I also very much appreciated his insightful explanations of cultural capital and his understanding of access to power and status. For a physical scientist, he understands social dynamics extremely well, and I am impressed with his ability to draw these aspects of life together into one important discussion about racial discrimination.
In general, I do recommend this book. I think it gives very interesting topics for discussion. However, I would hesitate handing it out indiscriminately. I think that people who already have some racist ideologies will see their prejudices confirmed and be unable to read this book's insightful content as it is intended. But I think that scientists and medical professionals would greatly benefit from a look at the arguments that Hart offers.
But here's what is really fabulous about the book: Hart is an extremely clear and talented writer, who weaves social science and physical science into an understanding of systemic oppression and injustice. He is able to clearly discern social patterns and rules of status that set people apart, including how he was able to achieve status within his own community, and then utilized that skill to enhance his status in a white-dominated scientific field. That was incredibly interesting and self-aware.
I'm 100% on board with Hart concerning the necessity to change drug laws, and that enforcement is biased, inequitable, and the "War on Drugs" resulted in a school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately affected black teenagers, even though white ones use and sell with greater frequency. I agree the laws and entire justice system need to change. Where he loses me in his arguments, is when he almost seems to brush aside any attempts at substance abuse prevention, calling them misleading and uninformed. He also leans heavy against the idea of substances as being addictive at all. And while we in the social sciences also know that the environment of a user is the biggest indicator for substance abuse, I find his assertion that addiction just doesn't generally happen hard to swallow. I don't know how you explain the opioid crisis, for example. Here is a narcotic dependency that affects people from all walks of life, which is one of the reasons it's getting so much attention. Poverty, behavior modeling, lack of education, do not cause opioid addiction; chemical dependency causes it. At least, that is the only conclusion I can see given the evidence.
My other beef with this book is that I don't think Hart has completely acknowledged or eradicated his own attitudes of toxic masculinity. He seems a little too interested in recounting his sexual prowess. He even uses the term "conquests" for women he slept with. At no point in his writing do I see him regretting his attitudes toward women, or speaking of them with any credible respect. Even when he confronts the reality that he conceived a child as a teenager, all of his sympathy is reserved for the child that resulted, not for the life of the mother. A life he undoubtedly altered through impregnation. Yet he never mentions her or the hardships she would have faced.
What I do love, once I get past his misogynistic tone, is his challenge to traditional thinking, and an explanation of science that throws previous understandings of addiction into question. I also very much appreciated his insightful explanations of cultural capital and his understanding of access to power and status. For a physical scientist, he understands social dynamics extremely well, and I am impressed with his ability to draw these aspects of life together into one important discussion about racial discrimination.
In general, I do recommend this book. I think it gives very interesting topics for discussion. However, I would hesitate handing it out indiscriminately. I think that people who already have some racist ideologies will see their prejudices confirmed and be unable to read this book's insightful content as it is intended. But I think that scientists and medical professionals would greatly benefit from a look at the arguments that Hart offers.