The Natural Mind: A Revolutionary Approach to the Drug Problem

This book was a disappointment. At first, I was interested to read a book by a Harvard graduate who thought highly of drugs (first mistake, should have remembered Timothy Leary and quailed in fear), but it quickly went downhill.

The book's preface stated that the author modernized the book, but it was full of heavily dated statements of "facts" about drugs.

Also, the author doesn't back up any of his statements, and constantly says "this happens to everyone," "this always happens," and "nobody could disagree with this." That makes me very suspicious, as always is hardly ever the case.

About 3/4 of the way through the book I realized that Andrew Weil is also the author of the fallacy filled book, From Chocolate to Morphine, which has been criticized on the forum as well, and I have to say, this was an equally flawed work. Weil makes comparisons to antibiotic use and drinking insecticides, and seems to believe that drugs don't actually have any physical effect upon the body, it's just our belief that they do that makes us feel altered.

There are innumerable fallacies in this work, and I don't think anyone's missing out on not giving it a read unless they'd like to see a Leary-inspired example (apparently Weil met Leary while Leary was still at Harvard and thought quite highly of him) of how to not give sources, not be credible, and really annoy serious readers.