Response to Sol Yurick's "Political Economy of Junk"; Response to a Response

Abstract

I would make several comments on Sol Yurick's article, "The Political Economy of Junk," in the December 1970 MR. I have no quarrel with his basic thesis that the current spread of, and alarm over, drug addiction must be viewed in the context of the political and economic system from which it springs. I think, though, that Mr. Yurick depicts its genesis too much as a conscious, deliberate act of Nixon or "the ruling class." Furthermore I think he tends to oversimplify or overemphasize the impacts on the legal and illicit subeconomies which addiction affects.

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