Lester Grinspoon, Marihuana Reconsidered. [Originally published by Harvard University Press in 1971.] Latest publication of revised edition by Quick American Archives, 1994.To order, click here.

One of the joys of working on this web site in this fashion is that I get to continue my teaching, but now in cyberspace. My style of teaching focused on reading fascinating books, assigning them to my students, and then coming into class to debate the ideas presented with the students. Of course, that in a sense is what I am doing now.

The current process means that I must go back through my own library and through Internet sources while I consider the books I want to mention on the site. When I started doing that in regard to the works of Lester Grinspoon, M.D., I was happily surprised to see the wonderfully broad scope of the books he had published over a period of three decades, many with his colleague, lawyer James Bakalar. Lester is a dear, old friend - not old, old in my eyes since he is about three months younger than me - and I knew about his amazing productivity, but for some reason it really impressed me this time around. You will be impressed also - and well educated if you go through some of his books.

They are solidly based in medicine, science, and law, and are clearly written and understandable by lay people. If you haven't already done so, I would start with Marihuana Reconsidered, which made a dramatic public splash when it was released in 1971. (Note that my friend Dr. Grinspoon insists on spelling the drug with an h instead of a j, but Harvard Medical School professors must be given some leeway on such matters.) It was a sound review of all of the available scientific evidence about this drug and came to conclusions quite contrary to the prevailing expert and governmental wisdom at the time. He called for a calm approach to the drug, honest education, legalization, and rational regulation. Sadly, these ideas are far from being implemented, after all these years.

Among his many other books is Marihuana, The Forbidden Medicine. This was coauthored with James B. Bakalar and published by Yale University Press in 1993, by which time public opinion on the medical uses of marijuana was moving toward a majority position. Also a great deal had been published about the medical uses of marijuana by then. To my surprise this excellent book also received a good deal of attention, in part I suspect because of its human detail and practical advice to doctors and patients. The book had an impact in many countries around the world. To order Marihuana, The Forbidden Medicine, click here.

You may also want to look at some of his other challenging books in this field. A work with perhaps the broadest overall scope is Drug Control in a Free Society, which he wrote with James Bakalar. The book was first published in 1988 and is still in print. To order Drug Control in a Free Society,click here.

In 1997, the Lindesmith Center republished another of his fascinating works with James Bakalar - Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered (Drug Policy Classics Reprints Series Number 1). To order Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, click here.