HOGSHIRE, Jim 1958-

PERSONAL: Born April 3, 1958; married Heidi Faust. Religion: Muslim.

ADDRESSES: Home—Seattle, WA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Feral House, P.O. Box 39910, Los Angeles, CA 90039.

CAREER: Writer. Has worked as a writer for tabloid magazines; former publisher and editor of newsletter Pills-a-Go-Go.

WRITINGS:

Sell Yourself to Science: The Complete Guide to Selling Your Organs, Body Fluids, Bodily Functions, and Being a Human Guinea Pig, Loompanics Unlimited (Port Townsend, WA), 1992.

Opium for the Masses: A Practical Guide to GrowingPoppies and Making Opium, Loompanics Unlimited (Port Townsend, WA), 1994.

You Are Going to Prison, Loompanics Unlimited (Port Townsend, WA), 1994.

Pharmaceutical Nation: An Obsessive Study of PillMarketing, Art, History, and Culture from Flintstones Vitamins to Prozac, Carol Publishing (Secaucus, NJ), 1996.
Grossed-Out Surgeon Vomits inside Patient! AnInsider's Look at Supermarket Tabloids, Feral House (Venice, CA), 1997.

(With others) Pills-a-Go-Go: A Fiendish Investigation into Pill Marketing, Art, History, and Consumption, Feral House (Venice, CA), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Jim Hogshire is a controversial, counterculture writer whose opinions are anything but politically correct. As the former publisher and editor of the newsletter Pills-a-Go-Go and author of several books on the subject of drugs, he has advocated for the benefits of drug use and for less government interference in drug production. His book Opium for the Masses: A Practical Guide to Growing Poppies and Making Opium not only praises the benefits of opium use but also destroys part of the myth that making the drug at home is difficult if not impossible. Similarly, Hogshire has written guides on how to sell parts of one's body for profit in Sell Yourself to Science: The Complete Guide to Selling Your Organs, Body Fluids, Bodily Functions, and Being a Human Guinea Pig, and how to survive prison in You Are Going to Prison. While Hogshire's antigovernment stance and off-the-wall opinions may be offensive to some readers, critics have found the author's writing to be persuasive, if often tongue-in-cheek.

In his first book, Sell Yourself to Science, Hogshire argues that it is not fair that hospitals, doctors, organ banks, and, of course, transplant recipients profit from organ and tissue donations, while the person who actually does the donating, as well as the donor's family, are forbidden by law to profit from this largesse in any way. Why should it be illegal, wonders Hogshire, for tissue and organ donors to make money when, for example, pieces of liver can be worth as much as $150,000, bone marrow for a transplant is worth about $10,000, and a kidney is worth between $4,000 and $5,000? With the shortage of organs and tissues for transplants often resulting in the unnecessary deaths of thousands of patients every year, making such donations profitable would likely increase the number of willing donors. And Hogshire further wonders why it is acceptable for people in America to legally own material possessions, such as cars and homes, but not their own bodies. "The book ought to be a spoof," noted Tim Appelo in Sciences, "but the range of Hogshire's economic research is evidence that he is on the level." "You might view this tome as pretty off-center," Jon Kartman similarly wrote in Booklist, "but it's well thought out and includes much practical information."

Similarly controversial is Hogshire's Opium for the Masses, an informative guide on how to obtain and process poppies for their drug benefits. Of this work, Michael Pollan wrote in a Harper's article, "The book's astonishing premise is that anyone can obtain opiates cheaply and safely and maybe even legally—or at least beneath the radar of the authorities." Poppies come in varieties that can be obtained from a florist or other garden store, explains Hogshire, who also notes that brewing the flower in a tea can be just as effective as manufacturing opium in the more complex, traditional way. Opium for the Masses was so controversial that, after its publication, Hogshire's home was raided by the Seattle police department's SWAT team. The charges of manufacturing drugs with intent to distribute did not stick, however, because the judge found that Hogshire was not actually growing the dried poppies that were found, and there was no evidence that he was dealing drugs.

Feeling vindicated after this run-in with the law, Hogshire has continued to publish books about drugs, though he no longer publishes his newsletter, Pills-a-Go-Go. The newsletter, as Pollan reported, included "news about the pharmaceutical industry alongside firsthand accounts of Hogshire's own self-administered drug experiments—'pill-hacking,' he called it." In his book Pills-a-Go-Go, Hogshire covers the history of pharmaceuticals as well as the "pill-head lifestyle," as Booklist contributors Mike Tribby and Gilbert Taylor phrased it. The book is intended to take the mystery and fear out of what is in our drugs and what effects they have on our bodies. Hogshire also ironically compares the messages people see from drug companies about the benefits of pills versus the government campaign against drug use. "This is a fun and often informative read," commented a Publishers Weekly contributor, "although some of Hogshire's pollyannaish conclusions . . . should be taken with a grain of salt."

In addition to advice on selling one's body parts and making drugs at home, Hogshire also offers a practical guide on how to survive prison in You Are Going to Prison. Noting that the United States holds more of its citizens in prisons than any other Western industrialized nation, Hogshire wrote this guide to offer advice on how someone can try to avoid some of the hazards typically endured by the incarcerated, including fights, rape, and the shame of becoming another prisoner's "punk"—someone who is a virtual sex slave. "Survival is what this book is all about," wrote Booklist contributor Dennis Winters. The reviewer praised the author for filling "a totally empty niche in the reference ecology."

Hogshire's goal of tearing down myths, preconceptions, and misinformation is also central to his book on tabloid journalism, Grossed-Out Surgeon Vomits inside Patient! An Insider's Look at Supermarket Tabloids. A former writer for the tabloids himself, Hogshire knows whereof he speaks. Here he compares tabloids to more respected newspapers and magazines and finds much that is similar, including how both types of reporting cater to the mainstream, how they influence the public, and how both sometimes invent stories (for the latter, Hogshire holds up recent cases of fictional reporting from the Washington Post and NBC News as examples.) Indeed, says the author, in some ways tabloids are better than mainstream newspapers in that their reporters are more aggressive about getting the story. Some of Hogshire's claims are dubious, however, as Peter Huston noted in a Skeptic review. Among these are his insistence—without supporting evidence—of a connection between the tabloids and the CIA and the Mafia. In addition to objecting to this lack of supporting research, Huston complained of "a rather disconnected feel from chapter to chapter." However, the critic concluded that Hogshire's exploration of the tabloid world "is a fascinating insider's work, one which held my interest from cover to cover."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August, 1992, Jon Kartman, review of SellYourself to Science: The Complete Guide to Selling Your Organs, Body Fluids, Bodily Functions, and Being a Human Guinea Pig, p. 1985; October 15, 1994, Dennis Winters, review of You Are Going to Prison, p. 378; October 1, 1999, Mike Tribby and Gilbert Taylor, review of Pills-a-Go-Go: A Fiendish Investigation into Pill Marketing, Art, History, and Consumption, p. 312.

Chicago Sun-Times, October 20, 1992, Julie Jacobs, "Author Admits He's Trying to Sell Us a Dubious Concept," p. 33.

Harper's Magazine, April, 1997, Michael Pollan, "Opium Made Easy: One Gardener's Encounter with the War on Drugs," p. 35.

New York Times, May 25, 1997, Carey Goldberg, "Author of Book on Poppy Cultivation Cleared on Drug Charge," section 1, p. 28.

Publishers Weekly, September 27, 1999, review of Pills-a-Go-Go, p. 85.

Sciences, January-February, 1993, Tim Appelo, review of Sell Yourself to Science, p. 39.

Skeptic, Volume 5, number 4, 1997, Peter Huston, "Tabloid Journalism?," pp. 87-88.

Whole Earth Review, winter, 1992, J. Baldwin, review of Sell Yourself to Science, p. 124.*