Setting out to read this book I recalled how blessed I had been by reading The Truth About AIDS. In it Patrick confirmed so succinctly the validity of unconditional love as the paramount approach of Christians in the caring field, authenticating the way a Christian drug agency should operate.
Sadly my anticipation that this latest book in the 'Truth' series would have the same seminal effect was not met. The book felt rushed, as though produced just to fill a niche, rather than being an expression of a burning concern on the part of the author. This so affected me that I found myself being very critical about details, rather than concentrating on the principles being illustrated. Where for instance he says 'current laws on smoking turn every smoker under sixteen into a criminal', I wanted to say that's not the truth. It's one of the absurd anomalies of our legislation that it's illegal for a shopkeeper to sell cigarettes to a person under sixteen but the youthful purchaser commits no offence, either then or when he smokes them.
Whilst agreeing 'more research is definitely needed' to quantify more accurately the extent of UK drug use, his concentration on US figures (which 'have no parallel in Britain') was unhelpful to the point of irritation. Many of the American statistics he quotes seem irrelevant. In those cases where the UK figures are relevant, I would suggest they are available, eg 'preventable deaths'. Neither are they 'soft estimates, based on hunch, intuition and educated guesswork'.
Again, who could argue that future generations will find our approach to tobacco ludicrous? Surely though we could find the UK equivalent to 'If a single ten-year-old boy or girl in a school can be persuaded to start, the total extra sales will be up to $100,000 over seventy years. Ten pupils are worth a million dollars.' Such a sober reminder of the potential to suppliers of getting someone 'hooked', whatever the drug, needs to be culturally explicit to make the point as forcefully as possible.
Despite previous cynicism about Government action to tackle drugs, I don't share Patrick's pessimism concerning the Government's new ten year strategy. Now, having been given substantial additional funding since this book was published, the signs are more promising.
Adding a question-mark to the title would, for me, give the book the credibility it lacks, making it a greater challenge, helping people to question more radically the morass of man's allurement to states of altered consciousness.
Reviewed by
Peter Farley
(Director of The Matthew Project, a Christian drug agency in Norwich, and member of the executive committees of the Standing Conference on Drug Abuse and the Evangelical Coalition on Drugs)
