Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History of America's Romance with Illegal Drugs is the earliest Jill Jonnes book I've read so far. It's a little less fluid than her later works--not badly written, just not quite as confident. It is, like them, extensively researched and immersive-sometimes scarily so, given the subject.
There was a lot of new material here for me; Jonnes documents a pendulum swing in our national drug use; it goes up for a while when people discover new, "harmless" drugs and then back down as they discover the harm, before rising once more as a new drug is discovered or an old one rediscovered, past experience forgotten.
Worth reading both for its broad historical overview and for Jonnes' intensive work. The only real complaint I have is that, since it was published in 1999, the information is somewhat dated. However, given the historical nature of the work and its depth, I still recommend it highly.
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