Marijuana Nation: One Man's Chronicle of America Getting High: From Vietnam to Legalization - Hardcover

Roffman, Roger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1605985465 ISBN 13: 9781605985466

Publisher: Pegasus Books, 2014

Synopsis

For Roger Roffman, a retired university professor, there’s nothing academic in the stories told in his memoir.

It was personal when Roffman struggled with his own compulsive pot use and when he lost his younger brother to a drug overdose. It’s personal when he challenges those who say marijuana is harmless.

It’s personal when he asks: If criminal penalties have been ineffective in protecting young people and the public’s health and safety, might a well-designed and well-regulated legal market do better?

For 45 years, Roffman has worn a multitude of hats, all related to his fascination with marijuana: the first to survey soldiers about their pot use in Vietnam, activist working to reform the laws, federally-funded marijuana dependence researcher, addiction therapist, drug educator, and - for a while - even a dealer who helped cancer patients learn about pot.

It began in Vietnam where, as an Army officer in 1967, he questioned the prison terms meted out to soldiers who got high, while at every military base in the country booze was cheap and readily available.

Roffman has experienced the layered and complex relationship Americans have with marijuana first-hand. His stories offer all too rare balanced insights about a drug that directly or indirectly has affected virtually all of us living in Marijuana Nation.

About this title

About the Author

Roger Roffman is a Professor Emeritus of Social Work at the University of Washington and has been part of a federally-funded, twenty-five year study/counseling initiative for marijuana dependent teens and adults.  He is a graduate of Boston University, the University of Michigan, and the University of California at Berkeley. Roger lives in Seattle.

Reviews

Roffman’s decades-long study of America’s shifting relationship with marijuana began in Vietnam in the 1960s, when he was serving in the U.S. Army. Although the drug was strictly forbidden (and even casual use carried hard-labor sentences), its use was widespread. Why, Roffman wondered back then, does society have such a vehement objection to a substance that, when used in moderation, appears to be fairly harmless? Nowadays, after many years of close study, he has found many answers but also many more questions. Part of the problem—the problem, that is, of determining the truth about the harmfulness of the drug—lies in what the author calls the “war over marijuana,” with both sides so polarized that there is very little common ground. Interestingly, Roffman doesn’t appear to pick a side, making good arguments for both positions and focusing on separating fact from fiction, letting us make up our own minds. A very valuable book, especially given the way today’s winds are blowing in the direction of legalized marijuana. --David Pitt

Edition details

• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1605985465
• ISBN 13: 9781605985466
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352