A SCIENTIFIC LIFE ON THE EDGE.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: BOOK

Psychologist Stanton Peele's memoir of his "lonely quest to change how we see addiction" could have been titled I Don't Get No Respect. His persistent promotion of the thesis that drug users are neither criminals who belong in jail nor patients who belong in "treatment" has been a long and often solitary struggle.

As Peele concedes in A Scientific Life on the Edge, his "reckless personality" helps explain his lack of success in academia. But it is also true that his nuanced understanding of addiction--which rejects the disease label and emphasizes the personal, social, cultural, and economic factors underlying self-destructive preoccupations with drug use and many other pleasurable activities--cogently...