On Drugs

Unlike Thomas Szasz, who argues forcefully for the legalization of drugs in Our Right to Drugs (Praeger, 1992), Lenson tackles this subject by meditating on the national consumerist paradigm and the ways that the war on drugs closed avenues for heterogeneity. He contrasts drugs of pleasure to drugs of desire, believes that to legislate against drugs of pleasure is like legislating against music, chess, golf. And while he admits that nothing in his professional life qualifies him to write about drugs, the academic tone that pervades his writing would mark him as a professor even if he were not identified as University of Massachusetts professor of literature.