Okay so the good stuff about this book: the science is fascinating, I learned a lot, and I frankly really strongly agree with Hart. I did before I read the book, but his arguments about pleasure are pretty compelling. He's able to tie together both the science and the racist history of drug criminalization (and the criminalization of Black people through drugs.) 

The major thing that kept this from being five stars, for me, was the way Hart uses "responsible" in his argument for who should get to use drugs freely. "Responsible" means nothing in this text; he never clarifies exactly who he thinks is "irresponsible," though he suggests that people with psychiatric illness should not use drugs (despite the VERY COOL fact that he drops that heroin is potentially AS effective at treating psychotic symptoms as anti-psychotics, with fewer side effects--which would suggest to me that perhaps people with psychosis would benefit from using heroin.) (Disclaimer I'm not a doctor and I'm not telling folks who experience symptoms of psychosis to use heroin.) 

This specter of responsibility hangs over this book, and given the classist, racist implications of "responsibility" that have been wielded against poor people and people of color in this country, I don't think it fits with his argument. It's a bad softening of his argument, and it creates this tension between drug users who he deems are "responsible" and users who don't fall into that category. What differences are there between someone who uses drugs as self-medication for mental illness and Hart, who says in the text of the book that he uses drugs instead of going to therapy (because of the racism of mental healthcare.) I understand why he doesn't use the description "self-medication" (because he's trying to resist a medicalization of his own drug use,) but it definitely sounds like that's what he's doing. How do we address that? How do we validate it? How can drug users "in the closet" show solidarity with drug users who cannot be in the closet, outside of "coming out"? These are all questions that are raised for me by his differentiation, and none are really answered by the book. 

I do definitely recommend people read this, especially because the discussion about the legalization of drugs is compelling and something to seriously think about. I just think some of his framing raises more problems than he addresses, and I found it a really big gap in the book.