Whether drinking Red Bull, relieving chronic pain with oxycodone, or experimenting with Ecstasy, Americans participate in a culture of self-medication, using psychoactive substances to enhance or manage our moods. A "drug-free America" seems to be a fantasyland that most people don't want to inhabit.

High asks fundamental questions about US drug policies and social norms. Why do we endorse the use of some drugs and criminalize others? Why do we endorse the use of some drugs and chriminalize others? Why do we accept the necessity of a doctor-prescribed opiate but not the same thing bought off the street? This contradictory approach shapes public policy, the justice system, research, social services, and health care and yet drug use remains relatively unchanged.

Ingrid Walker speaks to the silencing effects of both criminalization and medicalization, incorporating first-person narratives to show a wide variety of user experiences with drugs. By challenging current thinking about drugs and users, Walker calls for a next wave of drug policy reform in the United States, beginning with the recognition of the full spectrum of drug use practices.