High Society

How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It

Contributors

By Joseph A. Califano

On Sale
Oct 14, 2008
Page Count
288 pages
Publisher
PublicAffairs
ISBN-13
9781586485894

The individual who reaches age twenty-one without smoking, using illegal drugs, or abusing alcohol is virtually certain never to do so. As Joseph Califano points out in his searing indictment of America’s irresponsible attitude towards drug abuse, by failing to act on this lesson, we have lost untold lives and resources.

Califano deftly demonstrates how substance abuse is implicated in poverty, violent crime, soaring health care costs, family dissolution, child abuse, homelessness, teen pregnancy, and AIDS. With alcohol and tobacco interests buying political protection with campaign contributions and helping seed a culture of substance abuse, Califano illustrates the dire need for parental engagement, proposes revolutionary changes in prevention, treatment, and the nation’s criminal justice, health care, and social service systems, and sounds an urgent cry to address the plague responsible for the death of more Americans than all our wars, natural catastrophes, and traffic accidents combined.

Formats and Prices

Price

$10.99

Price

$13.99 CAD

Format

ebook (Digital original)

Format:

ebook (Digital original) $10.99 $13.99 CAD

Joseph A. Califano

About the Author

Joseph A. Califano, Jr. held key positions in the Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter administrations as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s top troubleshooter, LBJ’s domestic affairs chief, and Carter’s secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. As HEW secretary in 1978 he started the first national anti-smoking campaign, calling cigarette smoking “slow motion suicide” and “Public Health Enemy Number One.” In 1992, he founded The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.

Learn more about this author