Issue #44 February 2025
This issue of DPA eNews marks a departure. For the past few months, I have been taking stock of where I am with Drug Policy Alternatives. I’ve decided that I want to focus my time on a couple other things. One is a new stage of promoting my book “Buzz Kill: The Corporatization of Cannabis”. The research, writing, and re-writing literally took over my life for several years. A few years back, my son and I took a course on screenwriting. I remember the instructor’s repeated assertion that “writing is mostly re-writing”. When I decided to write a book, I sought some advice from someone who had already done so. The quick response was: “Don’t do it!” Now I understand. But I did it. The writing, and re-writing is completed, the book is published, and the travelling promotional phase is significantly subsiding.
This Issue #44 will be the last of DPA eNews. I will also be winding down the website www.drugpolicyalt.ca . There will be no more contributions after February, but the site will remain static until August – at which point I expect it will dissolve into the abyss. That gives people lots of time to access any content they wish to keep for future reference or to share elsewhere. I ask only that you credit the source.
In this final issue, I wanted to share some accomplishments with “Buzz Kill: The Corporatization of Cannabis”.
I decided early on that I was not writing this book to make money. That was a smart decision because I haven’t made any – well, not much. That was foretold in some implied advice I received in a conversation with Canadian political writer Eves Engler (who has written 14 books): “You’re not doing this to make money are you?” Eves’ rhetorical question reminded me of a comment I heard from a former winner of the Giller Prize – Canada’s premier award for fiction. When asked what he would spend the $100,000 prize on, the writer replied, “Well, I guess I will live for another ten years.” Think about that. One of Canada’s very best writers was living on an annual income of $10,000. What does a below average professional hockey player in Canada earn? There may be something awry with our priorities.
My major objective from the beginning was that Buzz Kill would find a home in as many academic, legislative, and public libraries as possible so it might be helpful to the next generation of drug policy analysts, advocates, and activists. Hopefully they will be more successful than my generation in waking the public and our governments out of a long-term drug policy coma. The important lessons of the book are transferrable in time and space, and even in the broader domains of social policy and political/economic change. The need for these lessons has accelerated significantly in 2024. Current world events suggest that it will continue to do so in 2025 and beyond.
To help with monitoring library uptake of Buzz Kill, I use a website, WorldCat, which allows you to search a database for book titles across many participating libraries. So far, Buzz Kill has shown up in the library collections of several dozen institutions, including some prominent ones: UCLA, Yale, The US Library of Congress, Library & Archives Canada, Library of Parliament Ottawa, and the law schools of Osgoode, San Francisco and Ohio State. In December 2024, the book was featured in MIT’s Impulse Borrowing Display. I have also happened upon it in other collections that were not included in WorldCat such as York University Bronfman Business Library, and Queens University Lederman Law Library. I recently discovered that the Royal Library at The Hague has ordered a copy – hopefully providing a much-deserved opportunity for some currently nefarious characters to get a chance to read it someday. It has also found a home with at least a dozen and a half Canadian public libraries – from Toronto and Edmonton to Fort Saskatchewan and Ucluelet. Ucluelet is a municipality on the British Columbia coast with about 2000 people. I bet there is a story there. Maybe I’ll write and ask them.
Near the bottom of this newsletter is the full list of libraries that, as far as I have been able to determine (as of February 9 2025), have Buzz Kill in their collections. If you know of a library that has the book, but is not included on my list, I’d appreciate your letting me know (devilla@mcmaster.ca).
For the next few months, I will devote more time to actively promoting Buzz Kill to libraries around the world. If your local academic, legislative, or public libraries do not have it, and you think they should, I’d be grateful if you could recommend it for their collections. At the end of this issue I’ve included the pitch I will be using with the libraries. Feel free to borrow from it as you wish.
I’ve been writing an eNews (aka blog) since March 2015 – always trying to provide an alternate perspective on drug policy, one that stretches the typically immutable limits of politically and commercially constrained orthodoxy, knowing full well that this is not the best way to make oneself popular at meetings or parties. I began with a blog during my final two years at CAMH on a platform it called Portico. I had toyed, at first, with the idea of calling the blog “Mike on Drugs”, but then thought, “maybe not”. I settled on “Drug Promotion, Problems, Policy” (DPPP). Within that abundantly plosive title, there is some decade-old writing that I would still stand by. After a brief hiatus, I wrote a few columns published on a site maintained by The Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research at McMaster University. After another brief hiatus, I started writing Drug Policy Alternatives.
It has been a joy to write for all these platforms. But after a decade of being the proverbial skunk at the picnic of drug policy orthodoxy, it is time to move on to something very different, but I expect, equally disqualifying from a path of lucrative career advancement. I’m not complaining. It’s been, and remains, an enormous privilege. I am grateful to all my subscribers, readers, and followers of Drug Policy Alternatives and Buzz Kill (and maybe even a few who remember DPPP) for your interest and support over the years.
And now for something completely different. To take advantage of that screenwriting course I mentioned at the beginning, I’ve begun to lay out the structure for a stage play – hopefully coming to a Fringe Festival in 2026. Working title: “Canada F$cked Up Cannabis Legalization”. That title might be a problem for radio advertising. Maybe “Canada Intercoursed Up Cannabis Legalization?”. “Coitused”? Awkward. Most writing is re-rewriting. But I think this is going to be fun.
If you haven’t already, you can order a personal copy of Buzz Kill: The Corporatization of Cannabis from the platforms listed below. It is available in hard cover, soft cover and eBook. You can order a paper version from your local bookstore. They will appreciate your support.
Onward to The Fringe!
Mike DeVillaer
Hamilton Ontario Canada
February 11 2025
Libraries with Buzz Kill in Their Collections
Libraries Listed in WorldCat (https://search.worldcat.org/)
McMaster University, Mills Library, Hamilton, ON
Toronto Public Library, ON
York University, Osgoode Hall Law School Library, Toronto, ON
The College of Wooster, OH
University of Michigan, Hatcher Graduate Library, Ann Arbour, MILibrary and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, Ottawa, ON
Library of Parliament, Ottawa ON
Ohio State University Moritz Law Library, Columbus, OH
SUNY College of Agr & Tech at Cobleskill, Van Wagenen Library, NY
Bryn Mawr College, Mariam Coffin Canaday Library, PA
University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
US Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, Montreal, QC
Yale University Libraries, New Haven, CT
University of Chicago Library, IL
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Dewey Library, Cambridge, MA
Assemblée nationale du Québec Bibliothèque, Quebec City, QC
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME
University of Tennessee at Knoxville, John C. Hodges Library, TN
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN
Dalhousie University Libraries, Halifax, NS
University of Kansas Library, Lawrence, KS
St. Francis Xavier University, Angus L. Macdonald Library, Antigonish, NS
University of Winnipeg Library, MB
Saskatchewan Legislative Library Regina, SK
Medicine Hat College, Vera Bracken Library, AB
University of Lethbridge Library, AB
Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Logan
Mount Royal University, Riddell Library & Learning Centre, Calgary, AB
Washington State University, Holland and Terrell Libraries, Pullman, WA
University of Washington Libraries, Seattle, WA
Simon Fraser University, WAC Bennett Library, Burnaby, BC
University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), CA
University of San Francisco, School of Law, Dorraine Zief Law Library, CA
Academic Libraries Not Listed in WorldCat
York University, Peter F. Bronfman Business Library, Toronto, ON
Mohawk College, Hamilton, ON
University of Calgary, Taylor Family Digital Library, AB
Queen’s University, Lederman Law Library, Kingston, ON
Toronto Metropolitan University, ON
University of Waterloo, Dana Porter Library, ON
Public Libraries
Bradford ON
Brantford ON
Burlington ON
Edmonton AB
Fort Saskatchewan SK
Kitchener ON
Lambton County, Sarnia ON
Masset BC
Oakville ON
Richmond BC
St. Catharines ON
Stouffville ON
Stratford ON
Toronto ON
Ucluelet BC
Wellington, Fergus ON
Whitby ON
There are a few more libraries in the process of ordering the book:
Hamilton Public Library, ON
Western University Library, London, ON
Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB
University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown
Koninklijke Bibliotheek [Royal Library], The Hague, Netherlands
The Pitch
Buzz Kill: The Corporatization of Cannabis is the definitive, most authoritatively revealing account of Canada’s cannabis legalization campaign. Buzz Kill is not anti- or pro-cannabis. It tells the story of cannabis’ journey from illegal street drug to legal consumer commodity. Reviewers have praised Buzz Kill for its convincing blend of thorough research and provocative story telling to show how the Canadian government abandoned social justice and public health protection in favour of corporate commercial opportunism. Buzz Kill is available in paperback, hardback & eBook formats. It has already been added to the collections of dozens of academic, legislative, national and public libraries. The book can be ordered from:
CANADA / US University of Toronto Press
https://utpdistribution.com/search-results/?contributor=michael-r-devillaer
INTERNATIONAL Central Books UK
https://www.centralbooks.com/buzz-kill-1.html
PUBLISHER Black Rose Books Montreal QC Canada
https://blackrosebooks.com/products/buzz-kill-michael-r-devillaer