Prescription Drug Abuse: A Reference Handbook, written by David E. Newton, author of over 400 books and manuals and an educator with over 35 years of experience, contains eight major sections related to prescription drug abuse, including a chronology, perspectives and profiles and reference resources.
The first chapter provides a readable and understandable overview of the beginnings of drug use in ancient times through the prescription drug problems in the current century. The second chapter devotes attention to particular categories of prescription drugs that are prone to abuse, as well as methods of addiction treatment and prevention. Each of the first two chapters concludes with a list of references, many of which are hyperlinked for easy access. These hyperlinks, however, open within the current window by default, which tends to disrupt the reading experience.
The third section of the text consists of eight short perspectives essays from scholars, researchers and representatives of organizations such as the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy and the Courage to Speak Foundation. Each perspectives essays include a short set of references and cover topics such as smart drugs, state efforts to control prescription drug abuse and the effect prescription drug abuse can have on the brain. The fourth chapter includes over 30 profiles of individuals and organizations associated with preventing or treating prescription drug abuse. This chapter helpfully provides the web addresses of profiled organizations, with tips on locating information on their websites. The fifth section offers a number of primary sources in the form of data tables of prescription drug overdose and usage rates, as well as national and state laws and legal cases related to the regulation of prescription drugs. The sixth section contains an annotated list of further readings, broken up by document type – books, articles, reports and Internet resources. Most of these readings are unique to the resources chapter, not having been mentioned in the reference sections at the end of the first two chapters. The seventh chapter offers a chronology of drug use and abuse from ancient times to 2015. The final chapter is a glossary of terms related to drug addiction and abuse, as well as specific prescription and nonprescription drugs.
The glossary is followed by an index which, in the e-book version, hyperlinks each term to send readers directly to mentions of that term within the text. Many of the See Also entries mentioned in the index are also hyperlinked to direct readers to related terms within the index itself; however, not all of these hyperlinks function properly and some see also entries are not hyperlinked at all.
The electronic version of the text, as here reviewed, offers both benefits and drawbacks. The e-book provides several ways to navigate through the text. Readers can advance the text using either the large clickable arrows on the left and right sides of the page or by using the keyboard’s arrow keys. Readers looking for a specific topic can search within the text or go directly to the desired page number by typing it. The table of contents is also hyperlinked for easy access, and an expandable menu for each of the first five chapters allows readers to pinpoint and jump to specific subtopics within each chapter.
Miniature thumbnails of the book’s pages, which should also offer a quick way to jump through the text, display along the bottom of the screen, though these do not load consistently. The left side of the reading window displays a menu of options for navigating or manipulating the text. This menu allows readers to zoom in or out on the text and load the table of contents. There are also menu options for extracting text and printing. The reader view of the page does not permit the highlighting of text, so copying and pasting must be done using the “extract” menu option. This is an extra step that may not seem intuitive or convenient for most readers, and is a drawback to the electronic text. The reading display of the text is also a downside. Although the e-book loads a two-page span, text only ever displays on the left page. This strange quirk results in blank pages displaying on the right, wasting screen space. There is no option for adjusting the display to either a single page or to two text-filled pages.
Despite some design flaws with the e-book interface, which have also been highlighted in other reviews of ABC-Clio products carried in these columns, Prescription Drug Abuse: A Reference Handbook would be a valuable resource for libraries catering to high school or lower level undergraduate students. This volume would also be an asset to public libraries with a consumer health collection.
