Mike Power (2) (1971–)

Nerd sniped at the library! I hustled to finish it so I could get back to doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

I am laughably square, but Drugs 2.0 was incredibly interesting even so. The history of drugs and the internet is closely intertwined (one of many interesting facts you'll learn: the first sale over the internet was of marijuana, in 1971), and they illuminate one another very handily.

Power is a shameless Ecstasy partisan; it's probably just as well he doesn't try to hide it. He makes his case pretty well, but it was frustrating that he keeps almost all the talk of addiction and negative consequences to the last chapters. He also could have written more in detail about organized crime (he mostly sticks to the facts of "this, this, and this mafia were manufacturing most X and Y available in A, B, and C"), though he does talk about the racist origins of drug laws against opium and marijuana around the turn of the last century and about the US's Drug War and prison problems.

Other highlights: an online debate over the finer points of MDMA manufacture between two extremely knowledgeable chemists... who are actually the same person! Very Ender's Game. Plus a thought-provoking quote from an entirely different book: "Revolutionary movements in pop culture often have their widest impact after the 'moment' has allegedly passed, when ideas spread from the metropolitan bohemian elites that originally 'own' them and reach the suburbs and the regions."

Drugs 2.0 is very science- and information-heavy, but also very readable.… (mais)