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Forces of Habit by David Courtwright, Harvard University Press,

$24.95/拢16.95, ISBN 0674004582

STANDING in an airport duty-free shop, David Courtwright realised he was

surrounded by attractively packed psychoactive drugs. It was this revelation

that drove him to write his remarkable Forces of Habit. Considering skirmishes

in the perennial warfare over cannabis, it could hardly be better timed.

Courtwright tackles every one of the so-called psychoactive drugs. Some might

find his scope surprising. Drugs are divided roughly into two kinds, 鈥渉ard鈥� and

鈥渟oft鈥�. Heroin and cocaine are hard, cannabis and ecstasy soft. Most people

recognise that alcohol and tobacco are also drugs, but don鈥檛 think about them

much. Still less do they consider the everyday drugs they indulge in.

Courtwright does and includes them: tea, chocolate, coffee and coca.

All over the world, people discovered natural substances that affected

consciousness. Then came international trade in some drugs. It had immense

social effects, good and bad.

Courtwright writes engagingly and with humour, not discouraged by the

daunting field he has to cover. Another of the book鈥檚 surprises is that it ends

on a less doom-laden note than might be expected. Although the sickening

exploitation of drugs for profit and power continued up to the end of the 19th

century, Courtwright finds that this free-for-all has now at least been

anathematised, and drug trafficking hampered, if not halted.