Jacob Sullum on the Lessons From Three Meth Panics
In his new book Meth Mania, sociologist Nicholas Parsons shows that public alarm about methamphetamine bears little or no relationship to objective measures of use or abuse. Parsons analyzes three distinct meth panics, arguing that they can best be understood by considering the motivations of people with an interest in creating a sense of emergency. As Jacob Sullum explains, the consequences have been as uglier than a tweeker in an anti-meth ad.