The Forbidden High

0,00 €

TopicSocial Sciences

AuthorDr. Robert Feustel

PublisherKohlhammer

How Drugs Became a Problem

The concept of drugs and drug use only emerged in the early years of the 20th century. Since then, a distinction has been drawn between “good” medicines and “bad” drugs; intoxication is regarded as alluring yet pathological, while addiction medicine has redefined the field. In the process it has given rise to a drug problem of supposedly the utmost urgency. However, this fundamental reassessment of psychoactive substances was not a response to any real social imbalance. Instead, it thrived on the ideological breeding ground of social Darwinism and racial theory.

The sweeping policy of prohibition, which spread across the globe over the course of the 20th century, served from the outset as a tool for the stigmatisation and marginalisation of minorities and rebellious youth cultures. It legitimises a repressive state apparatus and helps to conceal the burdens of capitalist conditions. Inequality and exploitation are reinterpreted as a “drug problem”. Protecting public health is often merely a cover story.

Robert Feustel deconstructs the modern “drug problem” without denying the risks posed by these substances. In doing so, he lays bare the “matrix of the sayable”: the space which determines what can be thought and said about drugs. Historical contrasts reveal that supposedly objective certainties are socially constructed and therefore open to debate. The rhetoric surrounding drugs loses its aura of self-evidence. This book makes the case for a radically different perspective, one that goes beyond ideology and alarmism.