The Dope Chronicles, 1850-1950

I came across this book years ago and bought it because it was such an usual presentation (design folk do that sort of thing, just to have an example of an interesting format). Apart from the first few pages and the nine chapter title pages every spread is a collage of newspaper clippings. Most of them are from the twenties to the end of the forties and they carefully positioned so that the headlines and illustrations are visible though in a lot of cases the text is also readable. The point of the book was to show how fifteen big city papers presented anything to do with drugs to the public. All the papers considered drugs a social menace or worse and the headlines reflect this. The chapter on the Dope Crusaders presents headlines like: Dope Evil's Spread Alarming to World, Claims Capt. Hobson Race Track Siren Was a Drug Fiend or this classic: Nepenthe of Kindly Death Is 'Evil Town's' Surcease For Ghosts of Poppy Trail. There is a constant use of words like Drug Fiends, Drug Slave, Narcotic Evil or the old favorite Opium Den in many of the headlines. If you are curious about how print media handled the drug problem or interested in newspaper language style in past decades it will be worth getting a copy. Full marks to designer Ray Ward who did such a stunning job in making hundreds of clippings into something worth looking at. ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

This is quite possibley the best book I've ever read concerning the War on Drugs. It details the media's portrayal of drugs (including alcohol before, during & after prohibition in the US), as well as almost all other drugs of popular (and unpopular) culture. With simple unbiased summaries of the era's it covers, this book exposes the absolute hipocrisy of the prohibition of mind-altering drugs. The only negative comment I have about this book is the paste-book style of many newspaper clippings spread onto a single page, often preventing complete viewing of the article and/or its source. The comments from Harry Anslinger about Marijuana should almost be compulsary reading for teenagers concerning media representations and sensationalisms of topics and almost have to be read/seen to be believed! A totally unique book.