Readers will be surprised and enlightened after reading Thomas Szasz's passionate arguments for the legalization of drugs. Rather than dwelling on the familiar impracticality and unfairness of drugs laws, he demonstrates the deleterious effect of prescription laws, which place people under lifelong medical supervision.

By stressing the consequences of the central aim of the U.S. drug prohibitions--protecting the public from harming themselves by self-medication--he emphasizes that a free society cannot endure if the state treats adults as truant children and if its citizens reject the values of self-discipline and personal responsibility.

Szasz explores the racial aspects of drug prohibition--drug enforcers are far more likely to accost blacks than whites--and suggests a connection between drug prohibition and the personal dread of the availability of an easy and pleasurable way to commit suicide.