So this was a very enlightening book in the sense that Hari covers in depth how the war on drugs started with racism and discusses other countries that have legalized different drugs and the outcomes that they have seen. I had known that the war on drugs was spurred by racism at its roots, but did not have information on exactly why we knew that, so I really appreciated the first half of the book due to its coverage of this.

The second half of the book really started to go downhill. The biggest issue that this book had is that he relies HEAVILY on the Rat Park experiments to make his points in the second half. Rat Park had many flaws and is not regarded as the norm for many reasons, and I highly suggest that research be done into that before starting in on this book. I kept having to glaze over many sections in the second half because it was dependent on Rat Park being true and undisputed. This section of the book is also where he covers the results that other countries have seen that have legalized drugs, so it should not be skipped, but I really wish there was a way to just cut out the parts that are not relevant anymore.