While well over one million small-time drug users languish in overcrowded prisons because of nonviolent drug offenses, tens of thousands of others get rich from legal and illegal drugs. Drug company representatives persuade doctors to prescribe inferior products. Children as young as two are routinely given powerful drugs. Legal drugs, taken exactly as prescribed, are a leading cause of illness and death. Scientists beholden to drug companies fabricate and misrepresent data. This eye-opening book richly documents disturbing trends in Western medicine and urges readers toward a broader understanding of drug use and abuse. Leavitt shows how and why American society must change its medical and policy approaches to drugs and re-orient medical practice to new ways of thinking.

By Fred Leavitt

Chapter 1 Introduction
Part 2 Part I: The Pharmaceutical / Medical Complex
Chapter 3 A Significant Portion of Medical Research Cannon Be Trusted
Chapter 4 Drug Companies Place Profits over Progress
Chapter 5 Medical Personnel Prescribe Incorrectly Too Often
Chapter 6 Human Subjects Have Often Been Treated Inhumanely
Part 7 Drugs in Psychiatry
Chapter 8 U.S. Citizens Are Overmedicated with Psychiatric Drugs
Chapter 9 There Are Effective Alternatives to Psychiatric Drugs
Part 10 The Wars on Drugs
Chapter 11 Widely Believed Misperceptions about Drug Addiction Do Great Harm
Chapter 12 Most Citizens Are Harmed Rather then Helped by the Drug Wars
Chapter 13 Many Drugs Are Dangerous
Chapter 14 Extensive Marketing of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Caffeine Causes Great Harm
Chapter 15 Many Individuals and Organizations Benefit from the Drug Wars
Chapter 16 Popular Programs for Combating Drug Abuse Are Unsuccessful, While Effective Programs Are Underused
Part 17 Appendix: A Brief Introduction to Pharmacology
Chapter 18 How Drugs Work
Chapter 19 Classification of Psychoactive Drugs
Chapter 20 Variability
Part 21 Epilogue