Pubdate: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 Source: Guardian Weekly, The (UK) Copyright: Guardian Publications 2001 Contact: http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/GWeekly/front/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/633 Page: 17 Author: Nicholas Lezard, Reviewer A HISTORY OF GETTING HIGH Out of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication by Stuart Walton Hamish Hamilton UKP 12.99pbk (UKP 11) Reviewed by Nicholas Lezard Of the making of books about drugs, these days, there is no end. The same stories are recycled, the vision grows blurred with yet another account of how Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on cocaine. But while Out Of It contains much that is fast becoming common knowledge, it separates itself from the competition by having a purpose: polemically reclaiming the state of intoxication as not only largely unharmful to society and sanctioned by precedent, but as a fundamental human right, a biological imperative in itself. When Britain's two major political parties offer no solution to the crux of extra-alcoholic intoxication beyond criminalisation, a book like this needs to be written, and, more importantly, read. The publication of Walton's book is not a matter of voguishness, but is part of a concerted yet multifariously independent approach to the split between private and political morality, one that makes a point of tackling the fact that, whatever the law of the land, quite a few people will persist in getting blasted. It is good to ask why this should be so, and while there have been plenty of books on the subject recently, this is one of the best. You can almost gauge this from the prose style alone. Walton is convincingly engrossing, and an elegant and forceful stylist. He is unafraid of launching himself towards the heart of the argument, as in his obiter dictum on those who suggest, to the recreational intoxicant user, that they lay off things for a while: "Users of some non-addictive drugs are often challenged to go for a prescribed period without them in order to prove that they are not dependent on them. This is a challenge that may be honourably resisted on the grounds that there is no point in it." The argument that follows is the old hippy chestnut about men being as dependent on trousers as junkies are on heroin (not that he puts it so crudely), but it is nice to know that there is an intelligent, articulate writer who is prepared to endorse and justify resistance to the modern-day temperance league. With meticulous attention to intoxication through the centuries, to the numerous logical fallacies perpetrated in the name of the law and recent custom, this is the kind of book that should be read not only by anyone given to intoxication but those who are concerned about it. It might not allay fears, but it will clarify them. No one, either in or close to the corridors of power, is prepared to think, in any commonly accepted sense of the verb, about this subject, but it is good to know that Walton has. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth