This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America
Stock up on munchies and line up your water bottles: journalist Ryan Grim will take you on a cross-country tour of illicit drug use in the U.S.-from the agony (the huge DEA bust of an acid lab in an abandoned missile silo in Kansas) to the ecstasy (hallucinogens at raves and music festivals). Along the way, Grim discovers some surprising truths. Did anti-drug campaigns actually encourage more drug use? Did acid really disappear in the early 2000s? And did meth peak years ago? Did our Founding Fathers-or, better yet, their wives-get high just as much as we do?
- Traces the evolution of United States' long and twisted relationship with drugs
- Gives surprising answers to questions such as: how did heroin become popular, when did the meth epidemic peak, and has LSD gone the way of Quaaludes
- Based on solid reporting and wide-ranging research-including surveys, reports, historical accounts, and more
Not since Eric Schlosser ventured underground to marijuana's black market in Reefer Madness has a reporter trained such a keen eye on drugs and culture. A powerful and often shocking history of one of our knottiest social and cultural problems, This is Your Country on Drugs leads you on a profound exploration of what it means to be an American.
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Book details
- Author
- Ryan Grim
- Imprint
- Trade Paper Press, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
- Published
- Pages
- 272
- Formats
- Hardcover, Paperback
- Subjects
- History › Social History
Self-Help › Substance Abuse & Addictions › Drugs - Topics
- drug use in America · war on drugs · social history · counterculture · drug policy · meth epidemic · psychedelics · American history
- ISBN-13
- 9780470167397 (Hardcover)9780470643891 (Paperback)
About the author
RYAN GRIM is a journalist and author who co-founded Drop Site News in 2024 after serving as Washington bureau chief for both HuffPost and The Intercept. His recent books include The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution, We've Got People and This Is Your Country on Drugs.
Grim holds a bachelor’s degree from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and a master’s in public policy from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has written for Slate, Rolling Stone, Harper’s and the Washington Post, and has served as a staff reporter for Politico and the Washington City Paper. At HuffPost, he led a team that was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, winning once.
