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Beware Euphoria

The Moral Roots and Racial Myths of America's War on Drugs

George Fisher author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc

Published:22nd Mar '24

Should be back in stock very soon

Beware Euphoria cover

Beware Euphoria uncovers the roots of America's moral obsession with drug regulation, offering a lively and fascinating history of the nation's racialized fear of intoxication. Challenging the idea that early antidrug laws in the US arose from racial animus, George Fisher instead shows in textured detail how US drug laws were driven by a deep-seated cultural taboo against euphoria and a preoccupation with white moral integrity. From nineteenth-century opium dens to the war on cocaine and cannabis, and more, Fisher offers a vivid tour of the sites of conflict, along with a convincing case for how the moral discourses and social contexts of the day pit drugs against the law. Bringing this history up to the present, Fisher shows how the racial dynamic has changed dramatically. As harsher penalties swell prisons with mostly nonwhite dealers, antidrug laws have come under renewed scrutiny as a tool of racial oppression. The book closes with an examination of cannabis legalization, driven in part by the movement for racial justice.

In this polemical work Fisher takes exception to the view that the societal banning of opiates, psychedelics, and other drugs despite the acceptance of alcohol use is rooted in racism against Chinese, Mexican, and Black Americans...this well-written and well-argued book makes a strong case in favor of the author's position. * Choice *
Fisher challenges claims that early antidrug laws in the U.S. arose from racialanimus, arguing instead that they trace to early Christian sexual strictures andtraditional moral censure of intoxication and perceived threats to respectablewhite women and youth. He finds that today's drug war's racial dynamic differsgreatly, as harsher penalties swell prisons with mostly non-white dealers. * Law & Social Inquiry *

ISBN: 9780197688489

Dimensions: 165mm x 221mm x 46mm

Weight: 839g

504 pages