High Price

A pioneering neuroscientist recounts his youth in one of Miami’s toughest neighborhoods and how it led him to his groundbreaking work in drug addiction.

Winner, Pen/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

“A fascinating combination of memoir and social science.” —John Tierney, New York Times

As a youth, Carl Hart didn't realize the value of school; he studied just enough to stay on the basketball team. At the same time, he was immersed in street life. Today he is a cutting-edge neuroscientist—Columbia University's first tenured African American professor in the sciences—whose landmark, controversial research is redefining our understanding of addiction.

In this provocative and eye-opening memoir, he recalls his journey of self-discovery and weaves his past and present. Hart goes beyond the hype of the antidrug movement as he examines the relationship among drugs, 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.

Though Hart escaped neighborhoods that were dominated by entrenched poverty and the knot of problems associated with it, he has not turned his back on his roots. Determined to make a difference, he tirelessly applies his scientific research to help save real lives. But balancing his former street life with his achievements today has not been easy—a struggle he reflects on publicly for the first time.

A powerful story of hope and change, of a scientist who has dedicated his life to helping others, High Price will alter the way we think about poverty, race, and addiction—and how we can effect change.

“Hart’s account of rising from the projects to the ivory tower is as poignant as his call to change the way society thinks about race, drugs and poverty.” —Scientific American

“A hard-hitting attack on current drug policy by . . . a neuroscientist who grew up on the streets of one of Miami’s toughest neighborhoods . . . An eye-opening, absorbing, complex story of scientific achievement in the face of overwhelming odds.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)