High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It | 
| Author: Joseph A. Califano Jr.
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $4.95
You Save: $22.00 (82%)
New (35) Used (26) Collectible (2) from $4.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 272142
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 1586483358
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.29
EAN: 9781586483357
ASIN: 1586483358
Publication Date: April 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: New Book. Fast Shipping. May have small remainder mark.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In High Society, Joseph Califano points out that a child who reaches twenty-one without smoking, using illegal drugs, or abusing alcohol is virtually certain never to do so—and chronicles the fearful cost in personal pain and public dollars of our nation's failure to act on this truth.
Califano shows how substance abuse is the culprit in violent and property crime, soaring Medicare and Medicaid costs, family breakup, domestic violence, the spread of AIDS, teen pregnancy, poverty, and low productivity. He takes on alcohol and tobacco interests that buy political protection with campaign contributions and seed a culture of substance abuse among our nation's children and teens. He explains the importance of parent power, proposes revolutionary changes in prevention, treatment, and criminal justice, and calls upon every individual and institution to confront this plague that has maimed and killed more Americans than all our wars, natural catastrophes, and traffic accidents combined.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Not a new idea in here September 21, 2007
15 out of 19 found this review helpful
No one is more responsible than Joseph Califano, Jr., for the fact that America now suffers the worse drug abuse crisis in our history, worse than nearly any other nation on earth. His tirelessly senseless crusades based on sensational, anti-scientific reports and bombastic rhetoric have pivotally shaped our calamitous national drug policy, received oceans of worshipful media, and soaked up millions in public funding for three decades. Now, he admits without irony, things are worse than ever.
"High Society" repeats more of Califano's formula for disaster. Make all youth abstain? How? We now arrest 800,000 persons under 21 every year for alcohol or drug possession and have dumped billions into no-no "prevention" policies for 25 years. Why would arresting millions and spending trillions doing more of what failed suddenly work?
And to what end? The drug-use surveys Califano relies on are meaningless. American Baby Boomers growing up in the 1950s and `60s had very low rates of teenage drug and alcohol use (82% of high school seniors in 1973 never used an illicit drug even once, approaching Califano's abstinence dream). Yet, Boomers then and now suffer by far the worst rates of drug-related deaths, hospital emergencies, crime, and other addictive ills of any generation, far higher than later generations that used drugs and alcohol more. Meanwhile, countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece, where use of alcohol by children and teens is widespread (usually daily), have the lowest rates of drunkenness, alcoholism, and related problems of any cultures. That's because they employ strict social and family controls on all ages rather than bombast and prohibition.
Yet, Califano, along with his allies such as drug czars John Walters and William Bennett, have relentlessly thwarted efforts to moderate drug and alcohol use by young and old Americans, insisting instead that the impossible panacea of complete, eternal abstinence is the only option even for mild drugs and, for persons under 21, everything. Califano's politically convenient ideology that problems would disappear if teenagers abstained fails to note that youths who don't drink or use drugs come from demographic groups (such as teetotaling religions) in which adults abstain as well, while kids who get drunk at young ages come from families with histories of adult drug/alcohol abuse, violence, and mental disturbance. Chasing around, arresting, and locking up the vast majority of teens who drink and use drugs while displaying no immediate or long-term consequences is a recipe for maximizing the odds they WILL become abusers.
This book, like Califano's career, extends his muddled fanaticism that has endangered generations of Americans. It reinforces the urgency of removing the failed drug warriors he represents from power so that new generations of ideas can emerge to fix the catastrophe they created.
High Society September 11, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This was a very straight forward book perhaps stating what we already might know about drug usage but still refusing to consider the problem as VERY serious. The statistics given in the book really bring a better perspective and the wide range of drug usage is clearly shown. The one section that dealt with marijuana was worth devoting an entire chapter on the subject. A very good book and easy to understand. Excellent for parents to use to help with the decisions that their children might someday have to face.
 Factually Freightening September 3, 2007
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
High Society would seem fictional and over exagerated had Joe Califano Jr. not backed up his statistics with over 1000 research footnotes. Everyone who has children or is concerned about the health of our society in general and in the workplace needs to read this book.
Having lost an adult child (an M.D., MBA 28 year old) to multiple addictions in 2006 as well as owning my own business and needing to deal with alcohol, drug and tobacco issues at work; I can't recommend this book enough.
If you think that your family or workplace would never be one of Califano's stattistics; you're fooling yourself!
Good Background Information! August 18, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
"Americans, comprising 4% of the world's population, consume two-thirds of the world's illegal drugs" - Califano's attention-getting opening in "High Society." Three-quarters of illegal drug users work either full- or part-time. The total 2006 financial bill for all this, including cigarette smoking and alcohol abuse, was near $1 trillion for health care, low productivity, disability, welfare, crime and punishment, etc. Califano also points out that some 80% of adult inmates incarcerated for felonies and of juvenile arrestees are involved in drug- or alcohol-related offenses or have drug and alcohol problems. Further, at least 70% of abused and neglected children in the nation's family court and child welfare systems are offspring of substance-abusing parents, and during the nine years of the Vietnam war, more than 200,000 died from from illegal drug use, 3.5 million from smoking-related illnesses, and almost one million from alcohol abuse and alcoholism - compared to the 58,000 in the war.
"High Society" also provides data showing that making substances illegal helps, aside from the impact on crime. During Prohibition, American drinking slid to less than one gallon/year, vs. about four in the early 19th century and 2.2 currently. The book also provides impressive data showing that those taking "gateway" drugs (eg. cigarettes, alcohol, and/or marijuana) are far more likely to end up using cocaine and/or heroin than those that do not, and the younger this illicit use begins the worse the problem. (The good news is that if they hold off until age 21, they are not likely to ever get involved with "hard" drugs.)
A 2003 government report named tobacco as the top "root cause" killer (450,000), alcohol abuse was #2 (100,000), guns #6 (30,000), and illicit drugs #9 (20,000).
Successful treatment barriers include lack of peer-reviewed outcomes data (Califano recommends more financial support for research), many states having no standards for individuals professing to be treatment counselor (many are simply recovered addicts), programs having wildly varying definitions of success, and insurance companies' pursuit of false savings.
One general key topic, however, was not addressed: "Why does America lead the world in illegal drug use; does this extend to cigarettes and alcohol also, and if so, why?"
AT LAST clear thinking and a plan for substance abuse and addiction! July 19, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Califano does a BRILLIANT job of describing the history of our country's substance abuse (from chewing tobacco to meth) and how we became a country of addicts. If we get nothing out of his book but one point it should be that our weakness is in spending the majority of our resources on TREATING substance abuse and addiction VERSUS PREVENTING it. As citizens we must insist that the government fund medical research to help us prevent us from becoming addicted in the first place--thus reducing crime, domestic violence, sexual abuse, poverty, teenage pregnancies and homelessness to name just a few.
If you are interested in substance abuse, this is a MUST READ.
|
|
|
