Beverly Hills, CA – Local attorney and longtime drug legalization advocate Allison Margolin has signed a book deal with North Atlantic Books https://www.northatlanticbooks.com to publish her debut novel and firsthand account of the last twenty years of the drug war inside and outside California’s courtrooms.
Margolin’s non-fiction memoir, Just Dope, is set to come out in Summer 2022. The book sheds light on the current global movement to reconsider the punitive approach that has dominated the last 150 years of drug policy. Margolin narrates the work from the perspective of someone who knew at age 12 it was her dharma to end the war on drugs. She writes about how her 18 years of experience practicing state and federal criminal defense, only further convinced her that just as her Harvard Law thesis argued, people do inherently possess the inalienable right to get high, and to criminalize that is inhumane and bad for society.
Margolin also shares insight into the hijinks that have characterized her latest legal escapades in the world of licensing and lobbying. She writes from a birdview point of view about the politics, and sometimes corruption, in the nascent cannabis licensing systems that have popped up throughout the country. And she also writes about the challenges of social equity programs that seek to make reparations to those victimized by the war on drugs, when the federal law prohibits access to funds that would otherwise be available for start ups, and when city council members the public is relying upon are accepting bribes.
She explores the parallels between our current world and the pre-prohibition era of the past century, and reveals the indignities and professional calamities that have befallen doctors helping patients access cannabis over the past 20 years. And while touting the benefits of psychedelics and cannabis, Margolin writes with equal passion about allowing safe access to methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and even fentanyl. And all the while, she reveals both the practicalities and fun of running and marketing a law practice. While the law firm at the center of the book’s plot is like few others, the author shows just how much enjoyment lawyers can experience if they use their creativity to do justice and make money.
As Margolin’s perspective has slowly started to take root with more and more of those in the “Establishment”, she has begun to collaborate with state and federal electoral candidates, including the newly-elected and most progressive head prosecutor in the country, District Attorney of Los Angeles George Gascon. “I am excited for Allison’s book to be published. Just Dope has the potential to become one of those once-in-a-generation books, shaking popular beliefs about the role of drugs in American culture and tipping the scales toward a more humane and thoughtful approach in the future,” Gascon said of Margolin’s novel.
Allison Margolin is represented by Max Sinsheimer https://www.sinsheimerliterary.com
Wikipedia on Allison Margolin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Margolin