Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine

by Wendy Chapkis and Richard J. Webb

From the Publisher: In Dying to Get High, noted sociologist Wendy Chapkis and Richard J. Webb investigate one community of seriously-ill patients fighting the federal government for the right to use physician-recommended marijuana. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM) is a unique patient-caregiver cooperative providing marijuana free of charge to mostly terminally ill members. For a brief period in 2004, it even operated the only legal non-governmental medical marijuana garden in the country, protected by the federal courts against the DEA.

Using as their stage this fascinating profile of one remarkable organization, Chapkis and Webb tackle the broader, complex history of medical marijuana in America. Through compelling interviews with patients, public officials, law enforcement officers and physicians, Chapkis and Webb ask what distinguishes a legitimate patient from an illegitimate pothead, good drugs from bad, medicinal effects from just getting high. Dying to Get High combines abstract argument and the messier terrain of how people actually live, suffer and die, and offers a moving account of what is at stake in ongoing debates over the legalization of medical marijuana.

Praise for the Book: “Chapkis and Webb’s new book provides a human element to the history, pharmacology, psychology, and politics of medical marijuana in a way that no other work has. The book is as riveting as a detective novel, as informative as a textbook, and as moving as a romance. I loved reading it and sure wish I’d written it.” — Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D., author of Understanding Marijuana

“Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine is an important and accessible book—not heavy on academic jargon, but rather lively and engaging, like a true detective novel—with a broad appeal to those interested in the medical potential of cannabis, an end to the drug war and grass roots activism.” — High Times

About the Authors: Wendy Chapkis is Professor of Sociology and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, ME. She is the author of the award-winning book Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor and Beauty Secrets: Women and the Politics of Appearance. Richard J. Webb is a lecturer in Communication Studies at San Jose State University, San Jose, CA.

ISBN-10: 0814716679    –    ISBN-13: 978-0814716670