Dr. Carl Hart's new book is High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society [his previous book is Drugs, Society, and Human Behavior, 2012, the 15th edition of a textbook]. 

Hart's memoir (he grew up in a tough, drug-riddled Miami neighborhood) examines the interconnected relationships among drugs, pleasure, choice, and motivation, from the social and a neuroscientific perspective. The book offers new and "eye-opening" insights into our ideas about race, poverty, and drugs - and highlights why the current "war on drugs" has failed.

This is his Google Talk on his work and his book.

Carl Hart - "HIGH PRICE: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society"

Published on Jul 22, 2013

High Price is the harrowing and inspiring memoir of neuroscientist Carl Hart, a man who grew up in one of Miami's toughest neighborhoods and, determined to make a difference as an adult, tirelessly applies his scientific training to help save real lives.

In this provocative and eye-opening memoir, Dr. Carl Hart recalls his journey of self-discovery, how he escaped a life of crime and drugs and avoided becoming one of the crack addicts he now studies. Interweaving past and present, Hart goes beyond the hype as he examines the relationship between drugs and pleasure, choice, and motivation, both in the brain and in society. His findings shed new light on common ideas about race, poverty, and drugs, and explain why current policies are failing.

Dr. Hart is an Associate Professor of Psychology in both the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology at Columbia University, and Director of the Residential Studies and Methamphetamine Research Laboratories at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. A major focus of Dr. Hart's research is to understand complex interactions between drugs of abuse and the neurobiology and environmental factors that mediate human behavior and physiology.

He is the author or co-author of dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles in the area of neuropsychopharmacology, co-author of the textbook, Drugs, Society, and Human Behavior, and a member of a NIH review group. Dr. Hart was recently elected to Fellow status by the American Psychological Association (Division 28) for his outstanding contribution to the field of psychology, specifically psychopharmacology and substance abuse.