Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Canadian liquor control

Dave Trippel supplies a website about Canadian liquor control here. By the way, anyone with a story or a citation relevant to this website, please send it on.

Jack S. Blocker, Jr., retires from teaching

In 2007 Jack S. Blocker, Jr., retired from teaching at Huron College (affiliated with the University of Western Ontario). A leader in the 1970s revival of American temperance history, he helped found what became the Alcohol & Temperance History Group and later served as its president. His work on American temperance history included two monographs, a general history, and two edited collections of essays. He was the senior editor of the ABC-CLIO historical encyclopedia for alcohol and temperance. He hosted two ATHG conferences at Huron College. At the second of the Huron College meetings the ATHG was reorganized as the Alcohol and Drugs History Society.

Retreat from Reform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States (1976)

Edited, Alcohol, Reform, and Society: The Liquor Issue in Social Context (1979)

“Give to the Winds Thy Fears”: The Women’s Temperance Crusade (1985)

American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989)

Edited, The Changing Face of Drink: Substance, Imagery and Behavior (1997)

Edited, Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia (2003)

Also has written on African-American history, mostly recently A Little More Freedom: African Americans Enter the Urban Midwest, 1860-1930 (2008)

Temperance movement in Washington State and British Columbia (article)

Stephen T. Moore, "Cross-Border Crusades: The Binational Tempeance Movement in Washington and British Columbia," Pacific Northwest Quarterly 98/3 (2007): 130-142.

Drink in Nova Scotia (book)

Graham Pilsworth, Nova Scotia drink-o-pedia (Halifax, N.S.: Nimbus, 2008).

Toronto "dry" advertising

For vintage Toronto "dry" advertising, see here.

Brewing and distilling on Prince Edward Island (article)

Edward MacDonald and Carolyn (Roberts) McQuaid, "Spiritual Liquors": Brewing and Distilling in 19th Century Charlottetown," Island Magazine 58 (2005): 32-39.

Molson Coors profit tops expectations

Molson Coors brewing reports higher than expected profits. Why? Despite increased cost of ingredients, higher prices and increased volume, combined with a US dollar sinking, produced the profits that topped expectations. For more, see here.

Second Cup Coffee

Founded in 1975, Second Cup Coffee is the largest Canadian-owned speciality coffee chain. Nearly all of its coffee shops are located in Canada.

Tim Hortons: Coffee, Crullers and Canadiana

Memories of Tim Hortons appear here. Founded in 1964, the company named after Canadian hockey star Tim Horton was purchased by Wendys in 1995 but re-emerged as an independent company again in 2006. (Ironically, in 2008 Arbys took over Wendys.) Knowing expressions from Tim Hortons such as Timbits and double-double have become part of a Canadian identity.

Canadians drink more coffee than tea

According to Statistics Canada, Canadians drink 52 liters of tea each year as compared with 86 liters of coffee.

Drinking in New France (article)

Catherine Ferland, "Le nectar et l'ambroisie: La consommation des boissons
alcooliques chez l'élite de la Nouvelle-France au XVIIIe siècle." Revue
d'histoire de l'Amérique Francaise, 58.4 (Printemps 2005), pp. 477-505.
Citation courtesy of Cynthia Belaskie who points out that Ferland has other
relevant publications.

Drinking on Good Friday in Canada

For laws in various Canadian provinces about drinking on Good Friday, see here.

Politics and drink in 19th cent. Canada

According to historian and publisher Alistair Sweeny, alcohol was everywhere in Canadian politics in the time of Sir John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada after confederation and himself an alcoholic. Of course, drink was everywhere even without politics. Sweeny says that when York had fewer than 2000 inhabitants it supported 60 drinking places that were open throughout the day and night. For more, see here.

Dry Mennonite community turns to drink

Steinbach, in the Canadian province of Manitoba, has long been "dry" and that suited its Mennonite population fine. Recently a referendum narrowly approved allowing a liquor store in the town. For more, see here.

CAMRA in Canada

The Campaign for Real Ale, founded in Britain in the early 1970s, has a few Canadian affiliates. CAMRA in Vancouver considers real ale something like slow food, quality instead of commercialized mediocrity. For more, see here.

Rural drinking place in 18th-cent. Newfoundland (thesis)

Barbara Leskovec, "A rural drinking establishment in Ferryland: Life in eighteenth-century Newfoundland"
(M.A. thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2007).

Meth-laced ecstasy common in American schools near Canadian border

Meth-laced ecstasy has become common in American schools in the states near the Canadian border. Although the drugs are smuggled from Canada into the USA, the ultimate source for the drugs appears to be China and India. For more, see here.

Allegations of chocolate price fixing in Canada

Allegations of chocolate price fixing in Canada involve Nestle, Mars, Hershey, and others. For more, see here.

Canadians drink more

Canadians drink 11% more per capita than a decade ago. For an analysis why and with what consequences, see here.

Tobacco smuggling through a Mohawk reservation

The Akwesasne (Mohawk) reservation is a major conduit for cigarettes and bulk tobacco to pass from the USA to Canada where taxes are much higher. The reservation, nearly the size of the Bronx, is partially within the USA (New York State where the reservation is known as St. Regis) and partially in Canada (Ontario and Quebec provinces). The result is a mixture of legal jurisdictions including those of American and Canadian tribal police. Of the tobacco products smuggled into Canada across the 4000-mile American border, 90% come through this reservation located near Canada's major eastern cities. For more, see here.

Coffee chains looking for younger customers

A newspaper in Canada looks at the growing interest of its coffee house chains in younger customers, teenagers and children. For more, see here. Tim Hortons and Second Cup already have added sugary drinks and youth-oriented foods to their menu, while Starbucks also is considering a younger menu. Starbucks notes that families with children often come to its coffee shops. Although the article looks at Canada only, probably this search for additional customers has its parallels in the USA, the UK, and elsewhere.

Old-timers quiet about the role of Gibraltar, Michigan, during prohibition

Debbie Davenport has organized a local historical society in the small town of Gibraltar, downstream from Detroit, but she faces difficulty getting old-timers to reveal the story of the whiskey and beer smuggled through its waterfront. There are many legends, but it is hard to determine the facts. For more, see here.

More brewery mergers?

The Economist speculates about brewery mergers. SABMiller (the product of a takeover of the second largest American brewer Miller by South African Breweries) and Molson Coors (a combination of a Canadian brewery with the third largest American brewery) have announced plans to combine their American operations under the name MillerCoors. The objective is to compete with Anheuser-Busch which controls nearly half the American beer market. The Economist wonders whether Anheuser-Busch may combine with the the world's largest brewer InBev, itself a combination of a Belgium-based brewer with a Brazilian-based one. For more, see here. The background for these mergers is a flat market for beer at least in the USA and much of Western Europe as upmarket consumers turn to wine and to what Americans sometimes call craft beer.

A game of khat and mouse

Khat is a shrub that grows only in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and it has suddenly joined the ranks of Canada's most problematic illicit drugs.

Seventeen tonnes were seized last year in crackdowns in Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario and Alberta. Police now seize more khat than cocaine, heroin, opium, crack, meth and Ecstasy combined. That's partly because it's a bulky drug. Still, there were almost 900 seizures in 2006.

A National Post investigation has found that, despite a crackdown at the border and police probes of the major smuggling rings, shipments are still arriving regularly at Canadian distribution points such as restaurants and coffee shops, where it is sold from backroom counters. The Post found khat being openly bought, sold and consumed in Toronto.

Read more here.

Prohibition on Prince Edward Island (article)

Greg Marquis, "Prohibition's Last Outpost," Island Magazine 57 (2005): 2-9. In 1900, Prince Edward Island was the first Canadian province to enact prohibition which endured until 1948.

Canadian parents OK with teen drinking

Most Canadian parents tolerate drinking by their teenage children, with a small number buying alcohol and hosting parties for teens in their homes to control dangerous behaviour, a Health Canada report says.

Find the full story here.

Canada and National Prohibition in the USA (article)

Stephen T. Moore, "Defining the 'Undefended': Canadians, Americans, and the Multiple Meanings of Border during Prohibition," American Review of Canadian Studies 34 (2004): 3-36

Brewing beer at Edmonton

Ninety-four years of Castle Beer at Edmonton. For details, see here.

Preliminary program, Global Approaches, 4th international alcohol and drug history conference, University of Guelph, August 10-12, 2007

4th International Conference on the History of Drugs and Alcohol, University of Guelph, Canada

Preliminary Program, August 10-12, 2007

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9

We invite you to join us for drinks at the Shakespeare Arms anytime after 8pm. 35 Harvard Road

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10

9.00-10.30

Alcohol and Social Change

‘Those That Are Cooking the Gins’: The Distillation of Ogogoro in Nigeria.

Simon David Howard Heap, Plan International, UK

Liberté, Egalité, and Viticulture During the French Revolution.

Noelle Plack, Newman College, UK

Regulations and Economic Policy in Haarlem’s 15th Century Brewing Industry

Richard John Yntema, Otterbein College, US

Medical Discourses

The Drug Policy of the Third Reich

Jonathan Lewy, Hebrew University, Israel

Magnus Hirschfeld, Alcohologist

Michele Morales, University of Michigan, US

Heredity and the Construction of Alcoholism and Addiction

Stephen Snelders, Toine Pieters, Charles Kaplan, VU-University Medical Center, Netherlands

Medicalization of Miraa: Social Control in Kenya via Commodity Regulation
Beverly Smith, West Virginia University, US

11.00-12.30

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Zheng Yangwen, University of Manchester

12.30-1.30: LUNCH

1.30-3.00

Images and Cultures of Consumption

Chair: Noelle Plack, Newman College, UK

Bottles, Madeira, and the Wine Trade: A Study of Maryland Elites Purchase, Consumption, Sale and Storage of Fortified Wines.

Mara Katkins, Temple University, US

Fleshing Out Current Nutrition With History: A Comparative Analysis of Beer’s Changing Uses Among the Karimojong.

Kelsey Dawn Needham, Binghamton University, US

Pictures of Potatory Pleasures: Nineteenth Century France.

Elisabeth Lee Vines, Albany College of Pharmacy, US

Vinum Brittanicum: Alcohol and the Invention of Englishness 1550-1850

James Quan Nicholls, Bath Spa University, UK

Alcohol and Drug History and Medical History: A Roundtable

Patricia Barton, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

Virginia Berridge, School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London

David Courtwright, University of North Florida, US

Stuart McCook, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON

3.30-5.00

Changing Approaches to Treatment

Chair: Yvan Prkachin

Treating Disease and Saving Souls: A case study in early medical treatment for alcoholism in a charitable context.
Caroline Clark, Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, Australia

‘Just Say Know’: Criminalising LSD and the Politics of Psychedelic Expertise.

Erika Dyck, University of Alberta, Canada

‘In From the Cold’? The Impact of HIV/AIDS on the Treatment of Heroin Addiction in Britain.

Alex Mold, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK

Expectant Mothers and Addicts: Twilight Sleep in Obstetrics and Drug Withdrawal

Mark Smith, University of Texas at Austin, US

Business and Prohibition

The Canadian Brewing Industry and the Royal Commission on Liquor Traffic, 1892-1895.

Matthew J. Bellamy, Carleton University, Canada

The Business Press and Prohibition in the United States.

Ranjit S. Dighe, State University of New York at Oswego, US

The Origins of Marijuana Prohibition in Australia.

John Jiggens, Independent Scholar, Australia

Alcohol Regulation in Canada

Liberty, Morality and the Right to Drink: Liquor Licensing, Trade Organization and Political Patronage in Late Nineteenth Century Canada.

Shawn Day, McMaster University, Canada

Noble Little Island or Dry Despotism? Prohibition on Prince Edward Island, 1901-48.

Greg Marquis, University of New Brunswick, Canada

DINNER 7pm: Dinner will be held at the Bullring, University of Guelph

SATURDAY, AUGUST 11

9.00-10.30

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Robin Room, Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, Australia

11.00-12.30

Class, Race, and Gender

“"Juvenile Junkies": Media Portrayals of Toronto's Youth, 1945-1960”

Holly Karibo, University of Toronto, Toronto

The Zoot Suit Riots: A Lethal Blend of Juvenile Delinquency, Alcohol, Marijuana, and Racism in August 1942.

Lisa L. Ossian, Des Moines Area Community College, US.

“Chinks Pay Heavily for ‘Hitting Pipe”’: The Perception and Enforcement of Canada’s New Drug Laws in Rural British Columbia, 1908-1930

Yvan Prkachin, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada

"In Vino Venus? La consommation féminine de produits dopants en France et au Canada, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles"

Catherine Ferland, Université Laval

Trading Alcohol and Drugs

“The Drug Empire: The Control of Alcohol and Drugs in Africa Since the Late Nineteenth Century

Charles Ambler, University of Texas at El Paso

Liquor Trade and Its Socio-Cultural Impact on Southern Nigeria, 1880-1950.

Adebayo A. Lawal, University of Lagos, Nigeria

The Parsis of India and the Opium Trade in China.

Jesse Palsetia, University of Guelph, Canada

‘Smoke Screen’: The Impact of International Pressure on Imperial Japanese Drug Policy, 1895-1941

James Sedgwick, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Canada

12.30-1.30: LUNCH

1:30-3.00

State Power, People Power: Comparative Exploration of Efforts to Eradicate Heroin/Opium in Mexico, Thailand and the Philippines.

Chair: William O. Walker, III, University of Toronto, Canada

Prohibiting Opium in the Philippines and United States: Creation of an Interventionist State.

Anne L. Foster, Indiana State University, US

Opium, Power, People: Anthropological Understandings of a Drug Interdiction Project in Thailand.

Kathleen A. Gillogly, Columbia College Chicago / Chicago State University, US

A Quantum Leap in Destruction: Aerial Herbicides, Technology, and U.S.-Mexican.

Daniel Weimer, Wheeling Jesuit University, US

Temperance Movements Across Times and Places

Chair: Scott C. Martin, Bowling Green State University

‘To Flood Our Fields of Literature’: The British Women’s Temperance Association and the Language of Reform.

Cynthia Belaskie, York University, Canada

‘Bacchus had Forc’d Open Hell’s Cabbins’: English Moralists’ Ideas of Alcohol Intoxication, 1660-1830.

David Clemis, University of Alberta, Canada

Baby You Can Drive My Car: The United States Brewing Industry and the Neo-Temperance Movement, 1970-1991.

Amy Mittelman, Holyoke Medical Center / Excel, Massachusetts, US

3.30-5.00

Drugs and Morality

Genetic Engineering, Coca Java, the Mystery of the Kew Plant

Steven B. Karch, Fellow of the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians (London)

Manufacturing Fear: LSD Use and Glue Sniffing in Ontario in the Sixties.

Marcel Martel, York University, Canada

Anti-Opium Reform in Late Nineteenth Century China and the United States: Shared Assumptions and Shared Anxieties.
Lars Seiler, Independent Scholar, US

Melodrama and Addiction: The Origins of a Cinematic Notion.

Robert P. Stephens, Virginia Tech, US

Drugs, Alcohol and Modernization

New For Old: The Changing Markets for Medicines and Intoxicants in Colonial South Asia After the Great War.

Patricia Barton, University of Strathclyde, Scotland

Alcool et Société: Entre vertu, vice, et tabou.

Omar Geuye, L’Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Senegal

“Old Pleasures, New Pleasures”: Opium and the Modernization of Iran.

Rami Regavim, University of Pennsylvania, US

The Opium Industry in Burma, 1826-1948.

Ashley Wright, Cambridge, UK

DINNER 7pm: At the Woolwich Arms, 176 Woolwich St. (downtown Guelph)

SUNDAY AUGUST 12

9.00-10.30

Drug Consumption and Drug Policy in Post-WW II America

How to Sell Drug Policy: Nixon’s Drug War as Public Relations.

David T. Courtwright, University of North Florida, US

Heroin and the Postwar American City.

Eric Schneider, University of Pennsylvania, US

Nationalism, Modernization and Narcotic Control

Fighting over subsidies and addicts: The ‘tribal war’ in Amsterdam addiction treatment, 1970-1985

Gemma Blok, History Department, University of Amsterdam,

Max Weber, the Protestant Ethic, and the Origins of the Global Drug Prohibition Regime.

Tilmann Holzer, University of Mannheim, Germany

Opium vs. The People: Nationalism and the Birth of Narcotics Control

Howard Padwa, University of California at Los Angeles, US

Narrative on Methamphetamine Use in Japan After WWII: Transformed.

Sato Akihiko, Kumamoto University, Japan

11:00-12:30

Science, Temperance, and Civic Society on the Periphery

The Still Small Voice of Science” Temperance Activists, Drinkers, and Doctors, in the Battle for an Inebriates’ Asylum in Toronto, 1862-1889.

Renée Lafferty, Brock University, Canada

Community-Based Action, Public Drinking, and Liquor Regulation in Ontario.

Dan Malleck, Brock University, Canada

Science, Temperance and the Improvement of Ireland.

E. Neswald, Brock University, Canada

Print and Advertising

Listening to Miltown.

David Herzberg, State University of New York at Buffalo, US

Imaging Alcohol in Manchukuo.

Norman Smith, University of Guelph, Canada

Decadence Through Moderation: Transforming Drinking Practices in Post-War Montreal.

Lisa Sumner, McGill University; Anouk Bélanger, Université du Québec à Montréal

Sons of Temperance in Nova Scotia

Port Williams, Nova Scotia, acquired a Sons of Temperance division (Lily of the Valley, #440) in June 1878. At first it met at the local Baptist church, but in 1894 it built its own hall. The organization remained active at Port Williams until the early 1960s. For more, see here.

Beer in Canada (article)

Derrek Eberts, "To Brew or Not to Brew: A Brief History of Beer in Canada," Manitoba History 54 (Feb. 2007): 2-13.

Canadians in US prohibition (book review)

Norm Goldman reviews Gord Steinke, Crossing the Line: Mobsters and Rumrunners (Folklore Publishing, 2004), about Canadian involvement in criminal violations of American prohibition laws. For more, see here.

Paisley Inn in the mid 1950s: Canadian wets and dries

For a report of a licensing conflict in Canada with an unintentionally ironic ending, see the story here.

Canadian-owned breweries disappearing

Moosehead Breweries, based in New Brunswick, is the largest surviving Canadian-owned brewery. Nearly 90% of the beer consumed in Canada is from breweries owned by international companies. For instance, a decade ago the Begian firm Interbrew purchased Labatt. In 2004 it merged with Brazil's AmBev to form the world's largest brewery company, InBev. Another iconic Canadian brewery, Molson, merged with the American brewery firm Coors in 2005 to create Molson Coors. Recently, the Japanese firm Sapporo acquired Sleeman. Ontario's Brick brewery, Canada's largest after Moosehead, is up for sale and may be acquired by non-Canadian interests. Other brewery companies selling in Canadia include the American firm Anheuser-Busch, the Dutch firm Heineken, and United Kingdom-based SABMiller, a giant created by the merger of South African Breweries with the American firm Miller. For more, see here.

Running "rum" from Prince Edward County

It was legal in Canada to export alcoholic beverages during American prohibition. For more, see here.

Starbucks ends artificial transfats

According to AP (8 May 2007), by the end of calendar 2007 Starbucks will end the use of artificial transfats in its drinks and pastries throughout the contiguous USA, Alaska, and Canada. Starbucks had begun the process in January. Starbucks will continue to naturally occurring fats such as in butter and cream.

Just sparkling juice, says distributor

A bubbly, non-alcoholic children's drink for sale in Alberta liquor stores has upset Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

The CBC reports.

U of T to divest $10-million in tobacco stock

The University of Toronto has become the first university in Canada to eliminate tobacco company investments on ethical grounds.  The Globe and Mail reports.

Nova Scotia brewer in 19th century (short book)

Peter L. McCreath, The life and times of Alexander Keith: Nova Scotia's brewmaster (Tantallon, N.S.: Four East Publications, 2001). 1795-1873.

'It's part of our lifestyle now,' says LCBO manager

A feature story in Saturday's Globe and Mail examines Canada's alcohol dependency:

In 2005, Canadians downed the equivalent of 7.9 litres of pure alcohol for every drinker and teetotaller over age 15. And many of us drink often -- consuming about 30 per cent more than the world average.

The social cost of our new lifestyle is staggering: $14.6 billion in 2002, and no doubt more in the years since. The health care bill alone is $3.3 billion -- higher than the price tag to treat cancer. We spent 1.6 million days in the hospital because of illnesses and accidents caused by people under the influence of alcohol.

For the first time, more people died from liver cirrhosis -- regarded as a benchmark of a country's problem drinking -- than on the roads in drunken car crashes.

Find the full story here.

Interview with Craig Heron

For an interview with Craig Heron, author of Booze, a history of alcoholic drink in Canada, see here.

Safe injection sites for heroin addicts

The (London) Independent, 19 February 2007, reports a trend of public health authorities providing safe injection sites for heroin addicts. This occurs in parts of Western Europe (Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland) and sometimes elsewhere (Australia, Canada(. For more, see here.

Blizzard of drugs from Canada

In the last decade, Canadian organized-crime groups, particularly Vietnamese, have become a major supplier of high-quality marijuana and potent ecstasy tablets in U.S. markets, according to reports by the U.S. and Canadian governments.

Read more here.

RCMP drug training sessions

A police training program to catch drug-impaired drivers treated test subjects as "Third World guinea pigs," says a criminologist.

The program, run by an RCMP corporal and held Dec. 2 in Edmonton, took a group of nine people - three men, the rest women, some of them prostitutes - who were were already high on drugs, mostly crack cocaine and marijuana, and brought them before 20 cops.

Cops tested them and tried to determine which drug they'd taken.

Find the full story here.

Vancouver Island breweries (thesis)

Gregory Mark (Greg) Evans, "The Vancouver Island brewing industry: 1858-1917" (M.A. thesis, University of Victoria, 1991).

Coffee: who grows it? who drinks it?

India's Financial Times, 5 Feburary 2007, reports on who grows and who drinks coffee. Although there are 25 kinds of coffee grown, two varieties dominate, (mostly) Arabica and (secondly) Robusta. The major producers are Brazil (33.16%), Columbia (11.65%), Vietnam (10.61%), Indonesia (5.97%), Mexico (4.59%) and India (4.60%) that combined produce about 70% of the world's coffee. The major consumers are the United States, Canada, Japan. Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland, and Spain. As an Indian newspaper, the Financial Times mentions that India consumes 30% of the coffee that it grows. For more, see here.

Frontwide World, May 2003, lists the top 10 coffee-importing countries, in order of amount imported, as the United States, Germany (less than half that of the USA), Japan, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, the United Kingdom, Poland, and the Netherlands. Per capita the Scandinavian countries drink the most coffee, with Finland averaging more than four cups a day per person. This website lists the ten leading coffee producers, in order of amount produced, as Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia, India, Mexico, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Ivory Coast and Uganda. Nearly 25 million farmers grow coffee in more than fifty countries. For more, see here.

Canadian tobacco publication in the 1940s (article)

"The Canadian Cigar and Tobacco Journal in the Forties: A Remembrance," by Cheryl Krasnick Warsh, in Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 21/1 (Fall 2006)

Tobacco in Canada, 1890-1930 (article)

“'Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire': Tobacco Use and the Construction of the Canadian Citizen, 1890-1930," by Sharon Anne Cook, in Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 21/1 (Fall 2006).

Illegal drug use in Canada (review)

Catherine Carstairs, Jailed for Possession: Illegal Drug Use, Regulation, and Power in Canada, 1920-1961, reviewed by Adam Jacobs, in Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 21/1 (Fall 2006).

DUI test market includes two Canadian inventions

As the push for new drunk driving detection technology moves ahead, two products are vying to become the latest Canadian inventions to break into the international market.

Canoe News reports.

Social History of Alcohol & Drugs, 21/1 (Fall 2006), published

The Alcohol and Drugs History Society announces the publication of volume 21, number 1 (Fall 2006) of the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal.  Hardcopy has been mailed to ADHS members and institutional subscribers.  The full contents will be posted online in Fall 2007.  This number of SHAD is a special issue on smoking and tobacco, with four articles looking at Canada, Hungary, and Russia.   There also are six book reviews on various topics.

The editor of the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs is:

Dan Malleck
Department of Community Health Sciences
Brock University
500 Glenridge Avenue
St. Catherines, Ontario L2S 3A1
Canada
dan.malleck@brocku.ca

Upscale crack

Oil workers and bankers in Canada appear to be cocaine's newest victims.  For Maclean's Magazine, Alexandra Shimo files this story. 

Regulating the sale of beer and wine in Canada (article)

Dan Malleck, "The Bureaucratization of Moral Regulation: The LCBO and (Not-So) Standard Hotel Licensing in Niagara, 1927-1944)," Histoire Sociale 38 (2005): 59-77. Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

Smoking youth more prone to drug use, study shows

Young people who smoke are much more likely to abuse alcohol and use illegal drugs than non-smoking youth, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

Find the full story here.

Opium and medicine (thesis)

Sarah Glumac, "New Jurisdictions and Expanding Authority: The 1911 Opium and Drug Act and the Professionalization of Medicine in Canada" (M.A. thesis, Guelph University, 2004).

The bottle and the damage done

Maclean's magazine reports on the tragic life of John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister:

"Far more than his virtues, Macdonald's character flaws," writes Brian Bethune, "are the very stuff of mythology in Canada, making him a kind of anti-George Washington."

"Even by the standards of the alcoholic 19th century, Macdonald was a notorious binge drinker, a man who would take himself to bed for days, downing bottle after bottle of port. (The sister-in-law of governor general Francis Monck -- Queen Victoria's representatives all soon learned they had to keep close tabs on Her Majesty's first minister -- once reported to Monck that Macdonald had been found in his nightshirt, drunkenly reciting Hamlet before his bedroom mirror.)"

Find the full story here.

Bottles up!

Ontario consumers will have to start forking out an extra 10 to 20 cents per container on their liquor and wine purchases when the province introduces a deposit system in about two months.

The CBC reports.

Rum running on Lake Erie (book)

David R . Frew, Midnight herring: prohibition and rum running on Lake Erie (Erie, Pa.: Erie County Historical Society & Museums, 2006).

Bronfman dynasty and Seagram empire (article)

Graham D. Taylor, "'From Shirtsleeves to Shirtless': The Bronfman Dynasty and the Seagram Empire," Business and Economic History On-Line 4 (2006). For the full text, see here.

Smoking ban creates mess outside bars

Ontario's new smoking ban has created a mess for Windsor bar owners, literally.

Canada.com reports.

PM plans clampdown on drug-impaired driving

[Canadian] Prime Minister Stephen Harper introduced plans Friday to amend the Criminal Code to clamp down on drivers who are high on drugs, calling drug-impaired driving "just as socially unacceptable" as getting behind the wheel when drunk.

The changes will give police new powers to apprehend and test drivers suspected of being impaired by drugs, increase penalties and promote awareness of the problem, Harper said.

The CBC reports.

B.C. Premier announces tighter restrictions on smoking in public places

British Columbia's Premier Gordon Campbell says his government will ban smoking in most public places, including schools and hospitals.

Campbell told about 1,000 delegates Saturday at the B.C. Liberal Party's convention that banning smoking is one way his government plans to improve the health of British Columbians and reduce health costs.

Smoking on all school property, both public and private, will be prohibited by next September, he said. The public smoking ban will take effect in 2008, giving businesses and institutions time for implementation, Campbell said.

Read more here.

Mild, Light to be dropped from Canadian cigarette packages

Three major cigarette manufacturers in Canada have agreed to begin phasing out "light" and "mild" on their packaging, the Competition Bureau announced Thursday.

Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited, Rothmans Benson & Hedges Inc. and JTI-Macdonald Corp. will begin changing their labels on Dec. 31 and will have the rollout completed by July 31.

Light- and mild-labelled cigarettes vary in their tar content, but critics have long held that they're not necessarily safer than traditional cigarettes.

The CBC reports.

Little known fact

Toronto's CN Tower, the world's tallest free-standing structure, earned a new spot in the Guinness Book of Records on Wednesday when it was recognized as having the world's highest wine cellar.

The CBC reports.

Around the World in eight hangovers

The task: investigating the 'cultural and traditional aspects of alcohol around the world'. In other words, getting very drunk in six of the world's most formidable drinking capitals. The man for the job? The Independent's Dom Joly.

Smoking ban hits loto-Quebec

Loto-Quebec says it may see a $150-million drop in revenue this year, as the new anti-tobacco law keeps smokers away from video-lottery terminals in bars.

The Montreal Gazette reports.

Restrictions on drinking by designated individuals accused of domestic abuse in Canada (article)

Mariana Valverde, "A Postcolonial Women's Law? Domestic Violence and the Ontario Liquor Board's 'Indian List,' 1950-1990," Feminist Studies 30/3 (2004): 566-588.

Ontario liquor law change aimed at preventing date rape

The Ontario government has proposed changing its liquor laws in an effort to protect bar patrons from date rape drugs. Under the new provisions, consumers would be permitted to carry their drinks with them into washrooms and hallways, thereby eliminating the opportunity for others to spike their beverages with so-called date rape drugs. Bars will have to extend their liquor licences to cover the new areas.

The CBC reports.

Professor asks university to take high road on prescription pot

A Toronto professor wants to smoke his prescription pot at the university where he works and is refusing to step onto campus until he can.

York University professor Brian MacLean says he has clearance from Health Canada for medical marijuana use for an undisclosed illness, but there is no place at work where he can smoke it.

"I have to medicate a lot," he says. "There's no issue here, well, can I restrain my medication on campus? No, I can't."

Until his medical need is accommodated, MacLean is refusing to step onto campus and is holding all of his classes on policing elsewhere.

The CBC reports.  Find an in-depth story about medical marijuana in Canada here.

And you shall know him by the trail of beer

A man suspected of stealing a loaded beer truck was nabbed after a police dog followed a trail of beer and clothes to find him hiding on top of a porch, Edmonton police said on Tuesday. The Scotsman reports.

Moosehead sending beer to Canadian troops

Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan will soon be able to battle the heat of the southern Afghan desert with some beer from the largest Canadian-owned brewery.

Moosehead Breweries, based in Saint John, N.B., is sending more than 1,700 cans of its Moosehead Lager to Canadian troops stationed in Kandahar, after some of them specifically requested the suds.

Canoe reports.

Winnipeg landlord to ban smoking in its apartments

The CBC reports that Manitoba's largest landlord will ban smoking for new tenants in its apartments, primarily to reduce maintenance costs. As of Oct. 1, Globe General Agencies in Winnipeg will no longer allow new tenants to smoke in their suites, on their patios or on their balconies. Existing tenants and their guests will continue to be allowed to smoke until they move out of their suites.

Celebrities have to obey smoking laws too

The CBC reports that Hollywood star Sean Penn has run afoul of Ontario government officials for smoking during an indoor event last weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Various newspapers and media outlets, including CBC Arts Online, published images of the Oscar-winning actor lighting up on Sunday during the press conference for his film All the King's Men, which had its world premiere in Toronto on Sunday evening and hits North American theatres Sept. 22. The press conferences are held inside a Toronto hotel ballroom.

No one should violate the province's smoking ban — designed to protect workers from second-hand smoke —whether it's Penn or an average bar patron, Ontario's minister of health promotion, Jim Watson, said Wednesday.

Canadians say pass the vino

Canadians haven't lost their taste for beer but wine was the toast of the country last year with strong increases in sales, a Statistics Canada report suggested Wednesday. The CBC reports.

Coca-Cola's Canadian experiment: hot coffee and tea

Coca-Cola is experimenting in Toronto with a new way of brewing quality hot coffee and tea (known by the brand names Far Coast and Chaqwa). The market for brewed hot coffee and tea is twice as large as that for carbonated soft drinks. For more, see here.

Ontario contemplates recycling liquor bottles through Beer Stores

The CBC reports that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is expected to meet with his cabinet Thursday to discuss details of a provincewide recycling program for liquor and wine bottles.

alcohol and first nations in Canada (book review)

Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 20/2 (Spring 2006)

Richard W. Thatcher, Fighting Firewater Fictions: Moving Beyond the Disease
Model of Alcoholism in First Nations. Toronto. University of Toronto Press,
2004. 358 pp. Paper. $35.00. isbn 0802086470. Reviewed by Greg Marquis, Uni-
versity of New Brunswick, Saint John.

Richard Thatcher is a clinical sociologist who is an experienced health and so-
cial policy advisor and researcher for Canada’s First Nations communities and
has been involved in community health surveys of dozens of reserves. These are
largely isolated, rural and poor communities inhabited by “status” Indians who
live in official “bands” recognized by the federal Department of Indian Affairs
and Northern Development. By the mid 1990s, Canada had roughly 500,000
“registered” Indians living on more than 2,000 reserves. In recent years these
communities have been experiencing a transition to self government, notably
in education and social services, but they remain heavily dependent on federal
transfer funds, and the social, economic and health indicators for reserve dwell-
ers are more problematic than those of off-reserve aboriginals.

Fighting Firewater Fictions is a complex and ambitious work that attempts to
explain the genesis and continued resiliency of the “firewater complex,” a set
of beliefs about alcohol consumption in aboriginal communities. It also argues
that the traditional disease concept of alcoholism, government policies and the
power structure of reserves help perpetuate social and medical problems related
to excessive drinking. According to Thatcher, things will not improve simply by
increased self governance. The simplistic disease concept of alcoholism, based
on abstinence as the only response, has to be re-evaluated, as do the real causal
factors behind disruptive and unhealthy drinking. Reforms will only take place
when the current passive model of reserve government, dominated by chiefs,
band councils and influential families, is replaced by community-based ap-
proaches and genuine economic development. Until then, reserve populations
will continue to suffer from risk-taking behaviours such as drinking, drug tak-
ing and gambling.

Reserve communities are associated with higher than average rates of family
violence, child abuse and neglect, suicide, arrest and incarceration. Despite of-
ficial assumptions, most problem drinkers on reserves are not alcoholics and
the rate of abstinence among First Canadians is higher than the Canadian av-
erage. The incidence of high-risk drinking is linked to gender, education and
employment: women, those with more schooling and those in the workforce are
less likely to be affected. The most visible form of problem drinking, group or
binge drinking, meets with two responses: tolerance, due to the forgiving nature
of reserve communities, or disease concept treatment (DCT) programs based
on abstinence, referral to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and a standardized
rehabilitation regime. Although DCT programs have adopted some cultur-
ally-appropriate aspects, such as sweat lodges, sweet grass ceremonies and the
involvement of elders, Thatcher views these as “politically correct” add-ons to
a flawed model.

The book is a good barometer of the state of the debate on alcoholism and its
treatment in North America. It discusses recent criticisms of “therapy” and the
tendency of research and service delivery to pathologize the poor and minorities.
Although the author is open to recent neurobiological evidence on addiction, he
is less comfortable with psychological or psychiatric explanations and is trou-
bled by the non-scientific influence of AA and fatalistic attitudes on reserves
that tend to blame all major problems on outside forces beyond personal or
community control. These include the decline or loss of shamanism, the need
for social cohesion in the face of colonialism, and dysfunctional personal and
family relationships caused by the residential schooling of native children prior
to the 1970s and child welfare interventions that resulted in large numbers of
children placed in foster care or adopted by non-native families.

The author offers a number of factors to explain how alcohol developed into
such a problem on reserves. These include the fact that drinking brings short-
term pleasure, that “out-of-control” drinking is learned behaviour and not the
result of genetic factors, and that group drinking reflects traditional aboriginal
ethics such as sharing scarce resources. He attributes First Nations’ tendency to
forget or excuse excessive drinking, or seek leniency in terms of legal sanction,
to the power of the disease theory, which views alcoholism as a sickness, not a
weakness or moral failing. The problem is exacerbated by the historic influence
of externally-imposed “total institutions,” the loss of traditional social controls
and periods of official prohibition that reinforced binge drinking practices. He
also attributes much out-of-control drinking behaviour and violence to male
status anxiety. The most important factor of all, however, was “the displacement
of the adult male economic role.” (161) These conditions were all created
by historic and outside forces, but the situation is reinforced by reserve band
governance, federal agencies, the culture of dependency and a crude reliance on
DCT models.

The second part of the book offers a series of strategies for reorienting al-
cohol prevention strategies in First Nations communities. The first necessary
step is developing a holistic approach to the problem that includes meaningful
economic development, community participation and expertise and individual
responsibility. Thatcher argues that because of the lack of normal career/life cy-
cle trajectories for most aboriginals, many literally do not outgrow risk-taking
behaviour such as binge drinking. Band governance itself, with its emphasis on
consuming resources and creating parallel institutions, will have to be reformed.
Programs should be measured for their effectiveness. Intensive, community-
based intervention programs for children are specifically highlighted.
This reviewer can find few faults with the book, although as an historian I
would have liked to have seen more attention to how and when problem drink-
ing became an actual, as opposed to an imaginary, problem on reserves. The
suggestion that prohibition, either under the federal Indian Act and provincial
liquor legislation or band policy, exacerbated the problem is not backed up
with research references in a book that otherwise is extremely well documented.
Finally, despite the logic of Thatcher’s reform suggestions, and recent acknowl-
edgements by native leaders that people should take greater responsibility for
their problem drinking, it is unlikely that either reserve governments or the fed-
eral government will, in the short run, enact radical reforms in areas such as self
government, service delivery and economic development.

masculinity and booze in Hamilton, Ontario (article)

Craig Heron, "The Boys and Their Booze: Masculinities and Public Drinking in Working-class Hamilton, 1890-1946," Canadian Historical Review 86/3 (August 30, 2005):411-452.

alcohol in Canada (book review)

Largely negative review by Graeme Decarie of Craig Heron's Booze: A Distilled History in Canadian Historical Review 86/1 (March 2005):136-138.  According to Decarie, Heron's work doesn't reflect the findings of the research that he cites in his bibliography.  Supposedly he has a 1970s romanticized attitude toward alcoholic drink.

Bottled nicotine may be option for Canadian smokers

The CBC reports that Canadian smokers may soon have a new alternative to lighting up a cigarette to soothe their need for nicotine — and it comes in a bottle. Nic Lite, a lemon-flavoured, water-based nicotine drink that contains four milligrams of organic nicotine — equivalent to the amount of the drug found in two cigarettes — may soon be landing on store shelves.

Canada's recent alcohol policy (book)

Norman Giesbrecht, Sober reflections: commerce, public health, and the evolution of alcohol policy in Canada, 1980-2000 (Montreal and Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006).

marijuana prohibition in Canada (thesis)

Yolande Cheryl House, "'The grandmother of marijuana prohibition': The myth of Emily Murphy and the criminalization of marijuana in Canada" (M.A. thesis,  Queen's University at Kingston (Canada), 2003).

medical benefits of alcohol (article)

Jean-Pierre Goubet, "La dive bouteille: voyages, alcools et remedes dans les deux hempispheres XVIe-XXe siecle," Historia Ciencias Saude: Manguinhos [Brazil] 2001 8(Supplement): 945-958.  Alcoholic drinks and health in Britanny, French Canada, and Brazil.

temperance among 19th-cent. French Canadians from perspectives of colonial and post-colonial studies (article)

Marie-Andress, Couillard, "Reconsidering the Temperance Movement in the Canadian XIXth Century," Anthropologie et societies 29/3 (2005). Discourse on temperance at margins of the British Empire.

call for papers: conference on history of drugs and alcohol (2007)

Global Approaches: The 4th International Conference on the History of Drugs and Alcohol, August 10-12, 2007, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

Drugs and alcohol have been at the heart of international trade, have played a key role in the colonial project, and have brought about large-scale social changes in societies across the world. Over the past ten years, scholarship on alcohol and drug history has expanded enormously, as scholars and activists across the globe contribute new interpretations. Global Approaches seeks to build upon increasing recognition of the international connectedness of this vital field of research by fostering further dialogue between researchers engaged in local and international studies. We invite papers on any aspect of drug and alcohol history, including consumption, production, regulation, and trade. We encourage submissions from people working on all parts of the world including North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, doing both local and larger-scale studies.

The keynote speaker will be: Zheng Yangwen, Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore, the author of The Social Life of Opium in China.

The deadline for the submission of proposals for panels, sessions, and papers is September 1.  Proposals should include an abstract of approximately 300 words and a short CV.  Proposals should be sent by mail to:

            Dr. Catherine Carstairs
            History Department
            University of Guelph
            Guelph, ON
            Canada N1G 2W1

Or they can be sent by e-mail to Dr. Norman Smith: nsmith06@uoguelph.ca

Funds may be available to assist the travel of international participants.

The University of Guelph is one of Canada's top-ranked comprehensive universities. Guelph, a locally renowned brewing centre, is located approximately one hour west ofToronto, Canada (just 40 minutes from Toronto's Pearson Airport). It is close to Ontario's internationally renowned Stratford Theatre Festival in Stratford, the Shaw Theatre Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and wine-touring in the Niagara peninsula.

The Conference is sponsored by the Alcohol and Drugs History Society.

[The ADHS defines drugs as including caffeinated drinks and tobacco]

brewing in western Canada (book)

William A. Hagelund, House of Suds: a History of Beer Brewing in Western Canada (Surrey, British Columbia, and Blaine, Washington: Hancock House, 2003.

Methodists and temperance in the Maritimes (paper)

Nathan H. Mair, "Attitudes toward the Temperance Movement among Methodists in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and P.E.I [Prince Edward Island], 1840-1862," paper delivered at Atlantic Canada Studies conference, Halifax, May 5-7, 2000.

Maritime Provinces temperance (theses)

Joanne Elizabeth Veer, "Feminist Forebears: the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Canada's Maritime Provinces, 1875-1900" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Brunswick, 1994).

Caley MacLennan, "Tying the Gordian Knot: the Nineteenth Century Temperance Movement in Nova Scotia" (B.A. honors thesis, Mount Saint Vincent University, 2000).

Marlene J. Willigar, "The Maritime Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1875-1895" (M.A. thesis, Saint Mary's University, 2001).

drink and temperance in Newfoundland (paper)

Debby Andrews, "Alcohol Consumption, Temperance, the Law and the St. John's Court of 1895 and 1915" (paper submitted for a Memorial University history course, 1992).

Chinese opium trade in British Columbia (article)

Lai, David Chuenyan. "Chinese opium trade and manufacture in British Columbia, 1858-1908." Journal of the West 38, no. 3 (1999): 21.

Party hosts not responsible for guests who drive drunk, high court rules

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously on Friday that hosts cannot be held legally liable for letting their guests drive home drunk. The CBC reports.

Alcohol and the Fur Trade in New France and English America, 1600-1800

Peter C. Mancall, “Alcohol and the Fur Trade in New France and English America, 1600-1800.” Drugs, labor, and colonial expansion. Ed. William Jankowiak and Daniel Bradburd. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003, pp. 89 - 100.

Cadbury-Schweppes news

Cadbury-Schweppes has made the business news for its recent buy-up of Dr. Pepper/Seven Up Bottling Group. Ireland Online is one outlet reporting details today. Cadbury, now "the world's biggest selling confectioner," is now poised to "demerger" their drinks business from their sweets business. Their drinks now include ownership or licensure of Deja Blue water, Big Red and Monster energy drinks, Sunkist and Snapple, a bottled sweet tea.

Cold remedies moved over crystal meth concerns

Popular cold medications are being pulled from some store shelves in Canada, to curb their use in the production of crystal methamphetamine. As of Monday, medications containing pure pseudoephedrine or ephedrine, such as Sudafed Decongestant, will only be found behind the counters of pharmacies in some provinces – including Nova Scotia and P.E.I.

The CBC