Update on Draft 3.2

The Draft Four deadline is precisely one month from today -- egads. For this week I was supposed to provide a first round of edits to Draft Three, and while I have done that on a hard copy, I have not entered the edits yet. I was supposed to look into licensing in a general way, but that task has slipped into the coming week. On the background reading front, there are currently four books I am tracking. The books are:

(1) The Saloon Problem and Social Reform, by John Marshall Barker, 1905;

(2) Last Call, by Daniel Okrent, 2010;

(3) Addiction: A Disorder of Choice, by Gene M. Heyman, 2009; and,

(4) Carrots and Sticks, by Ian Ayres, 2010.

I have not touched the Ayres book in the past week, so still have only read the first 14 pages (out of 218) in that one. Limited progress on the others. Here's the current story. in terms of pages read: Barker (which I have threatened to drop!), 86 out of 212, up from 78; Okrent, 96 out of 469 (up from 56), with the skip-ahead portion extended by six more pages to pages 310 to 394; and Heyman, 43 out of 200, up from 12. The Heyman book includes (pages 29-31) a nice discussion of the probability that one-time use of a drug will turn into dependence upon that drug. From pages 30-31:

On average about 5 percent of those who used an illicit drug became a drug addict, whereas about 15 percent of those who ever had a drink went on to become an alcoholic. Opiates, namely heroin, are the exception. About 20 percent of U.S. opiate users went on to become addicted...

Heyman also emphasizes (and provides the evidence for) the significant cultural and socioeconomic influences on susceptibility to addiction.

For next week, the main goal is to enter the current edits, and to upgrade the manuscript more generally.