Praise for Spiced
In this timely and lively chronicle of psychoactive substance consumption, Professor Graham provides insights into human hopes and despair that touch all of us in one form or another. He does this at multiple levels: the personal, interpersonal, institutional, and larger societal. The treatment is comprehensive, historical, and penetrating into human and social vulnerabilities and remedies. All this is done with an integration of themes and principles from research into consumer behavior and marketing. Professor Graham makes his subject matter and purposes come alive with many actual stories, mini-case histories, and vignettes interwoven throughout the presentation of fascinating technical details of psychoactive consumption. The book is fun to read, yet haunting and sobering in its implications for people everywhere and public policy.
– Richard P. Bagozzi, the Dwight F. Benton Professor of Behavioral Science in Management and formerly Professor of Social and Administrative Sciences, College of Pharmacy, both at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
The list of psychoactive substances covered in Spiced is impressive. Including salt and sugar provides unique views about the consumption of hedonic molecules. The author’s marketing background fills an important gap in our understanding of the global consumption of these powerful spices.
– David J. Nutt, DM FRCP FRCPsych FMedSci, the Edmond J. Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London
No one is better equipped than John Graham to tell the provocative story of ancient and contemporary spices – their global marketing, consumer use and abuse, and regulatory complexity. Efforts to improve consumer wellbeing require this kind of integrated review of how we got where we are. After reading this book, your perspective on these psychoactive substances, from the salt shaker on your table to contemporary discussions surrounding the legalization of marijuana, will be forever changed.
– Linda L. Price, Philip H. Knight Chair, Lundquist College of Business, Department of Marketing, University of Oregon