East Village book bash for Under the Influnece: The Disinformation Guide to Drugs by Dan Forbes
October 21st from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m.
Uncle Ming’s, at 225 Avenue B (at 13th St.) in NYC
Forget the modest number of immodest go-go dancers, the syncopation from renowned Slipper Room vinyl spinner, DJ Ness, the no-doubt dissolute air rubbing shoulders (let’s say) with strangers similarly possessed of a certain moral casualness. Come, rather, seeking proof of the cruelties, absurdities, malfeasance & propaganda promulgated by your government to prop up an ever shakier War on Some Drugs.
DisInfo and editor Preston Peet have corralled the top writers on drugs (verily) for a volume chockablock with the sort of truth-to-power rarely found between soft covers:
Libertarian big-foot Jacob Sullum, of the usually eponymous Reason magazine and author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use (Tarcher/Putnam New York Press columnist, author and irasciblist Paul Krassner; Daniel Pinchbeck, author of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism (Broadway Books bona fide contemporary shaman, Rick Doblin, who’s actually buffaloed the feds into approving his investigations of post-trauma, therapeutic Ecstasy; and ex-Village Voice columnist, Cynthia Cotts.
Not to mention Ethan Nadelmann, avatar of the Drug Policy Alliance and many state drug-reform ballot initiatives; China Syndrome screenwriter, Mike Gray, whose seminal drug policy books include Drug Crazy (Random House Lonny Shavelson, author of Hooked: Five Addicts Challenge our Misguided Drug Rehab System (The New Press rock star and ex-High Timeser Steven Wishnia, author of Cannabis Companion (Running Press our beloved editor, High Timeser Preston Peet, who also edits DrugWar.com; and Daniel Forbes, a feckless freelancer who engendered four congressional hearings and testified at two after revealing that the Clinton White House steered $22 million to the TV networks for government-approved anti-drug TV scripts and has perpetrated numerous stone-down-a-well scoops ever since.
