America had a radically different relationship with drugs a century ago. Drug prohibitions were few, and while alcohol was considered a menace, the public regularly consumed substances that are widely demonized today. Heroin was marketed by Bayer Pharmaceuticals, and marijuana was available as a tincture of cannabis sold by Parke Davis and Company. Exploring how this rather benign relationship with psychoactive drugs was transformed into one of confusion and chaos, The Cult of Pharmacology tells the dramatic story of how, as one legal drug after another fell from grace, new pharmaceutical substances took their place. Whether Valium or OxyContin at the pharmacy, cocaine or meth purchased on the street, or alcohol and tobacco from the corner store, drugs and drug use proliferated in twentieth-century America despite an escalating war on “drugs.” Richard DeGrandpre, a past fellow of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and author of the best-selling book Ritalin Nation, delivers a remarkably original interpretation of drugs by examining the seductive but ill-fated belief that they are chemically predestined to be either good or evil. He argues that the determination to treat the medically sanctioned use of drugs such as Miltown or Seconal separately from the illicit use of substances like heroin or ecstasy has blinded America to how drugs are transformed by the manner in which a culture deals with them. Bringing forth a wealth of scientific research showing the powerful influence of social and psychological factors on how the brain is affected by drugs, DeGrandpre demonstrates that psychoactive substances are not angels or demons irrespective of why, how, or by whom they are used. The Cult of Pharmacology is a bold and necessary new account of America’s complex relationship with drugs.

In this illuminating investigation of the epidemic of attention deficit disorder (ADD) and Ritalin, psychologist DeGrandpre sounds the warning that we may be failing our children by treating symptoms and not causes with a quick fix and ultimately unsatisfactory solution.

The year is 2001. The internet has us swimming in information. New digital media like DVDs, MP3s, PlayStations, and DTVs are revolutionizing the entertainment industry. The e-economy has redefined the marketplace. E-books are now available at the click of a button. And life is... what? Faster? Better? Richer? Healthier? Happier? Well if you're not exactly sure, don't be surprised. As Richard DeGrandpre spells out in this panoramic guide to the new electronic culture, all is not necessarily well in our emerging digital dreamworld. First and foremost, he explains, we are becoming digitally mastered. New digital portals are leading us into an ever more virtual reality, such that the images, rhythms, and moods of the digital environment are rapidly become the dominant images, rhythms, and moods of the mental environment. Digital technology is conditioning in us a growing desire for plugged-in worlds, he says, leaving us increasingly unsatisfied and frustrated in what's left of the unplugged world. In twenty-five original and provocative essays, DeGrandpre questions whether we as individuals or as a society have adequately considered the implications of a fully-wired world, and finds considerable historical evidence that our digital culture will lead us to a time that has, literally, no place. The name of this placeless place is of course Digitopia.

Die >Kinderpille Ritalin steht auf einem der obersten Plätze der Liste der meistverkauften Psychopharmaka. Für den amerikanischen Psychologen Richard DeGrandpre ein gefährliches Paradoxon: in seinem engagierten und kritischen Buch führt er den Nachweis, wie der Beschleunigungswahn unserer Gesellschaft und die ständige Zunahme von Sinnesreizen unser Bewusstsein und das unserer Kinder verändern. Er zeigt auf, wie die Unfähigkeit, mit Langsamkeit umzugehen, Gesundheit zerstört und nennt den Preis, den besonders Kinder dafür bezahlen: mit der Einnahme von Stimulanzien, die Geschwindigkeit simulieren und mit einer Krankheit