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“World War-D” Table of Contents
Section 1: A contrasted history of the war on drugs
Foreword to Section 1
Chapter 1: The political, ideological and historical background of prohibition
Prohibitionism, a 19th century totalitarian ideology
Settlement patterns and prohibitionism
The temperance movement
The psychoactive landscape at the dawn of prohibition
Chapter 2: The build up to the war on drugs
Moral panics and the build-up to the Harrison Tax Act of 1914
Alcohol prohibition in the US: The noble experiment
Moral panic revisited: Harry Anslinger and the 1937 Marihuana Tax Bill
Narcotics and the mob
Early dissenters
Chapter 3: Anslinger’s legacy from Nixon to Clinton: Drug panics forever
Nixon era
Build-up to the 1980s cocaine craze
Klaus Barbie and the Bolivian cocaine coup
Reagan era
The age of stupid
The Iran-Contras crack cocaine connection
The rise and fall of the Medellín cartel
The aftermath: more of the same
The never-ending saga
The Mexican decades
Chapter 4: the illegal psychoactive marketplace in the 21st century
Prohibition in a market economy
Modus operandi of the illegal drug trade
Current trends in the illegal psychoactive marketplace
Street and prison gangs expansion – alliance with Mexican drug cartels
Narco-trafficking in the age of globalization:
Diversification and expansion of transit routes – path of least resistance
Diversification and sophistication of transit modalities
Technological innovations and the next wave of diseases of excess
Chapter 5: The war on drugs in numbers – The cost of the war on drugs
To put things into perspective: legal and illegal drug-related casualties in the US, EU and throughout the world
The societal cost of drug use
The cost to taxpayers of the war on drugs in the US
Health cost of the WOD
Human cost of the war on drugs in the US
The human and geopolitical cost of the war on drugs
Colombia
Mexico
Central America, Caribbean, West & East Africa, Afghanistan
Environmental cost of the war on drugs
Unintended consequences: The perverse effects of the criminalization of drugs
Socialization and amplification of costs – Privatization of profits to criminal enterprises
Corruption, the universal lubricant
The spread of violence
Empowering of narco-traffickers and narco-terrorists
Erosion of civil liberties
Prisons as institutions of higher criminal learning
The rise of the prison-industrial complex in the US
Is it working
Conclusion to section 1
Section 2: Major legal and illegal psychoactive substances, their action and benefits and their harm-causing potential
Foreword to section 2
Chapter 6: Psychoactive substances and the brain
Homeostasis, a key adaptive process
Cells for starters
Brain 1.01
Neurotransmission
Neuroplasticity
Neurotransmission and psychoactive substances
Major neurotransmitters
Glutamate
GABA (?-aminobutyric acid)
Acetylcholine
Dopamine
Norepinephrine (noradrenalin)
Serotonin
Neuropeptides
The endocannabinoid system
The pleasure/reward pathway in the brain
The brain reward pathway and the pursuit of happiness
The addiction puzzle
Genetic and epigenetic factors of addiction
Neural mechanism of addiction
Vulnerability and resistance to abuse and addiction
Hallucinogens and other types of mind-alteration
The mind alteration drive
Chapter 7: From initiation to addiction, drug careers and drug cultures
Modes of administration – evolutionary-adaptive gaps
Psychoactive substances and the growing brain
Patterns of use – Drug careers – Use, abuse and addiction
The issue of initiation
Subcultures appropriation of Psychoactives – Global youth culture
Chapter 8: Alcohol
Moonshining from outer space to the “Wine Pool and Meat Forest”: A brief history of booze.
Alcohol in Indo-European cultures and Western civilization
Pharmacokinetics of alcohol
Effects of alcohol on the body
Alcohol and the brain
Stages of alcohol intoxication
Alcohol use patterns
Health and other benefits of moderate use
Heavy episodic drinking/binge drinking
Alcoholism (alcohol addiction)
Youth drinking
Co-morbidity of alcohol abuse and mental disorders
The socio-economic cost of alcohol
Chapter 9: The case of tobacco
The addictive power of Tobacco
Medical uses and health benefits of tobacco
Chapter 10: Prescription psychoactive drugs
Main classes of prescription psychoactive drugs
The patent engine
Cosmetic psychopharmacology – the “worried well” and the medicalization of normalcy
Prescription psychoactive drug abuse, a twenty-first century epidemic
Addiction by prescription – big pharma and greed addiction
Conclusion
Chapter 11: Illegal drugs
Cannabis and Cannabinoids
Medical applications of cannabinoids
Route of administration
Toxicity, tolerance, addictivity
Opiates
Cocaine
Amphetamines and ATS stimulants
Ecstasy – Designers drugs/party drugs
Hallucinogens
LSD
The truly hallucinating history of LSD
Pharmacology of LSD
Other hallucinogens – psilocybin/magic mushroom, mescaline/peyote
Multi-substance use
Conclusion to section 2
Section 3: Beyond the war on drug
Chapter 12: Changing attitudes
Indulgence and hypocrisy at the top
US
Latin America
EU
India
The International Community: UN, WHO, UNESCO, etc.
Chapter 13: Critical analysis of prohibitionism and its premises
The flawed prohibitionist model
Prohibitionism and moral relativism: Faulty premises and false assumptions of prohibitionism
Prohibition is not practically and efficiently enforceable
The resilience of the prohibitionist model
Prohibitionism and ulterior motives
Critical analysis of UNODOC positions as laid by its Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa
Chapter 14: The debate over harm reduction
What is harm reduction?
The cost issue
Excise tax
Lessons learned from other harms
Harms related to illegal drug use
Harms related to the use of psychoactive substances
Primary harms to the user
Secondary or societal harms to third parties
Harms caused by drug prohibition
The cost of madness
Chapter 15: the debate over legalization
The limits of decriminalization
Selective legalization
The case for legalization
Limits of the pure free market approach
Global legalization of production, consumption and trade
Controlled re-legalization is the only realistic option for emerging countries
Expected US opposition to controlled re-legalization and why it may not matter
Winners and losers of re-legalization
Legalization and the UN
The danger of a free-for-all approach and the urgency of coordination
Chapter 16: How to end the war on drugs – a pragmatic roadmap to controlled re-legalization
Re-legalize
Tax
Control
Regulatory options
Regulatory issues
Regulating production and wholesale trade
Educate and prevent
Treat
The issue of under-age substance use and abuse
Harm reduction to be expected from controlled re-legalization
Harm augmentation that can be expected from re-legalization