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Intoxicating Minds by Ciaran Regan, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.99,

ISBN 0297842870

WE ARE all drug users. Always have been, and probably always will be. We may

argue about the legalisation of cannabis and pity heroin addicts, but we’re

happy enough to grab a cappuccino on the way into work or celebrate with a glass

of bubbly.

What’s legal and what isn’t has more to do with politics, economics and

culture than with the underlying science. There’s a resistance to doing research

on illicit drugs, with the result that millions of young people have taken

ecstasy without anyone knowing much about the effect it has on their brains.

Intoxicating Minds promises a discussion on drugs, behaviour and society. But

this is not what you get. True, there is some brilliant material here: I was

fascinated by the history of caffeine, and stunned by the extent of the world

trade in narcotics. The drawback is that it’s written in a rather academic

style. Most of the book is devoted to retreading very familiar territory, such

as the workings of the brain and the history of psychotropic drugs.

Ciaran Regan hardly addresses the key questions, such as whether humans are

destined to take drugs, and whether the drugs themselves can actually remodel

the brain. In short, the book just doesn’t live up to its intriguing title.

Pity.