If anyone is interested in the sordid history of the prescription and prohibition drug dichotomy, I highly recommend "This is Your Country on Drugs." The book

If anyone is interested in the sordid history of the prescription and prohibition drug dichotomy, I highly recommend "This is Your Country on Drugs." The book details how the drug war came to be as a political and economic tool to expand government power and create pharmaceutical monopolies, not primarily for consumer safety.