Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Drugs and Alcohol: Contested Histories (book series)

Northern Illinois University Press is acquiring manuscripts for its series, Drugs and Alcohol: Contested Histories, which investigates cultural, legal, economic, and medical histories of alcohol, drugs, and other substances such as coffee and tobacco. The advisory board includes David Courtwright, University of North Florida; David Fahey, Miami University (Ohio); David Gutzke, Missouri State University; and James Mills, University of Strathclyde. Contact Sara Hoerdeman regarding manuscript submissions at shoerdeman@niu.edu

Quinine Fraud in British India (article)

Patricia Barton, "'The Great Quinine Fraud': Legality Issues in the 'Non-Narcotic' Drug Trade in British India," Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 22/1 (Fall 2007): 6-25.

Origins of narcotic control in the 19th-century urban north (dissertation)

Joseph Michael Gabriel, "Gods and Monsters: Drugs, Addiction, and the Origins of Narcotic Control in the Nineteenth-Century Urban North" (Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University, 2006).

Drug-related violence in Mexico with police as victims

The campaign against drugs (and related police corruption) in Mexico hasn't reduced fighting between drug cartels but has led to the death of many police officers, including the acting head of the federal police. For more, see here.

Drug cartel wars kill 1100 in Mexico in a year

Killings between rival drug cartels have killed 1100 in Mexico in the past year. For details, see here.

International harm reduction conference

IHRA’s harm reduction conferences have been key forums for the dissemination of harm reduction ideas and practice around the world since 1990. In 2008, over five days in the stunning Mediterranean city of Barcelona, the programme includes over 50 sessions and 200 speakers, as well as keynote addresses from:

• Paul Hunt (UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health)
• Antonio Maria Costa (UNODC Executive Director)

This is a truly global conference, with over 1,200 delegates from 80 countries – including policy makers, UN staff, people who use drugs and frontline workers. Translation will be available in four languages:

• English (the main conference language)
• Spanish
• French
• Russian – New Addition!
----------------------

http://www.ihra.net/Barcelona/Home

(this post is courtesy of David Trippel)

Nearly half of American college students use illegal drugs

The Christian Science Monitor makes the arrest of 75 San Diego State students in a drug raid after a six-month sting operation the hook for a story on increased campus drug use. Although between 1993 and 2005 student alcohol (and alcohol binge) consumption did not increase, student marijuana use more than doubled and student use of other illegal drugs increased by more than half. For more, see here.

Qing and drug control (article)

Joshua Fogel, "Opium and China Revisited: How Sophisticated Was Qing Thinking in Matters of Drug Control?", China Review International 13/1 (Spring 2006): 43-51.

America on drugs

In the Los Angeles Times, Jacob Sullum and Charles (Cully) Stimson argue about drugs, including the distinction between drug legalization and drug decriminalization (leniency toward users while jail time for sellers). For more, see here.

Illegal drugs and legal in the USA psychoactive drugs(book)

Paul Gahlinger, Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to Their History, Chemistry, Use and Abuse (Plume, 2003). Guide to the 178 drugs illegal in the USA, plus the 33 psychoactive drugs that are legal in the United States.

Drug Trafficking in Cuba from the 1920s till Castro (book)

Eduardo Sáenz Rovner, The Cuban Connection: Drug Trafficking, Smuggling, and Gambling in Cuba from the 1920s to the Revolution, translated by Russ Davidson (University of North Carolina Press, forthcoming 2009). First edition published in Colombia in 2005. The English translation has been updated by the author.

USA and global drug users, 1898-1970 (dissertation)

Nathaniel Lee Smith, "'Cured of the habit by force': The United States and the global campaign to punish drug consumers, 1898--1970" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007).

From self-discipline and persuasion to prohibition

In a Reason Online review essay Jacob Sullum (author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use), agrees with a 1978 article by sociologist Harry G. Levine: the notion that drugs are inherently addicting explains the nineteenth-century shift from moderation and moral suasion to prohibition for alcohol and later for other drugs. For more, see here. Reason is a libertarian publication. In his essay Sollum reviews Joseph A. Califano, Jr. High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do about It, and Richard DeGrandpre, The Cult of Pharmacology: How America Became the World's Most Troubled Drug Culture.

How psychiatry is medicating America (book)

Charles Barber, Comfortably numb: how psychiatry is medicating a nation (New York : Pantheon Books, 2008).

Jesús Malverde, patron saint of Mexican drug dealers and poor Mexicans and Mexican-Americans

Jesús Malverde (killed by Mexican police in 1909) has become the unofficial patron saint of Mexican drug dealers and also is widely revered by poor Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. His statues and other memorials are increasingly widespread. For more, see here.

South Africans heavy drinkers and drug users

According to the Central Drug Authority, nearly 30% of South Africans have an alcohol problem or are at risk of having one. In addition, South Africans use many drugs, a few at slightly below global norms but others at a higher level, sometimes twice the world average. For more, see here.

The Wire

Trysh Travis writes:

HBO's critically-acclaimed drama The Wire (David Simon, writer/producer) is best known for its thoughtful portrayal of the political economy of narcotics trafficking and the dismal interdiction strategy known as the "war on drugs." Episode two of what will be the final season just aired on 13 January, and the last chapter in Simon's narrative is shaping up to give what should be a similarly nuanced depiction of addiction and recovery. The former is the path of Baltimore cop Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), the latter that of Bubbles (Andre Royo), a street hustler and sometime informant for McNulty's squad. Country singer Steve Earle, himself a recovering narcotics addict, appears as Waylon, Bubbles's sponsor. Earle's stripped-down cover of Tom Waits's "Down in the Hole" serves as the show's appropriate opening theme.

More information on air times, episode guide, etc., at http://www.hbo.com/thewire/.

Youthful abuse of cough and cold medicines to get high

According to a 2006 study, 3.1 million Americans aged 12 to 25 have used cough and cold medicines to get high, a figure much higher for this age group than those who used methamphetamines. The same study showed that for this age group 82% have used marijuana and nearly half have used inhalants or hallucingens such as LSD or Ecstasy. For more, see here.

Drugs and alcohol go to Hollywood (article)

Michael C. Gerald, "Drugs and Alcohol Go to Hollywood," Pharmacy in History 48/3 (2006): 116-138.

American drug war, Thailand and Burma (dissertation)

Daniel Weimer, “Seeing Drugs: The American Drug War, Thailand, and Burma, 1970-1975” (Ph.D. dissertation, Kent State University, 2005).

Articles on drugs via the Internet

An Amsterdam-based website provides full text for many articles here.

Baltimore Library of National Institute on Drug Abuse Closes

The closure or downsizing of libraries and archives useful for alcohol and drugs historical studies is a problem in the USA as well as in the UK. In the Spring of 2007 the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) closed its Baltimore library. What will happen to its collection is unclear. This closure and other closures and downsizings are discussed in the SALIS (Substance Abuse Librarians and Information Specialists) News, vol. 26, no. 4, Winter 2007. For more, see here.

New editor for alcohol and drugs history series

The alcohol and drugs history series, published by Northern Illinois University Press, has a new editor. The former series editor, Melody Herr, has moved to the University of Michigan Press. As a result the director of the NIU Press, J. Alex Schwartz, will handle the drugs and alcohol history series. He can be reached by email at aschwartz@niu.edu.

Drugs and Empires (New Book)

In November 2007, Palgrave Macmillan will publish Drugs and Empires: Essays in Modern Imperialism and Intoxication 1500-1930, edited by James Mills and Patricia Barton. 

Click here for the book's description, table of contents, and author bios.

Syllabus for a history of drugs course

For the syllabus of the Cornell University course offered by Professor Mary Roldan, "Drugs: Peoples, Policies, Politics," see here.

Drug literature since the 19th century (dissertation)

Todd Alan Schack, "The Cultural War on Drugs: The Language of Drug Literature 19th Century to the Present" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder 2006).

Drugs and stimulants in Iranian history (book)

Rudi Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900 (2005). Opium, wine, coffee, tea.

Drugs in Rio (book)

Enrique Desmond Arias, Drugs and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro: Trafficking, Social Networks, and Public Security (University of North Carolina Press, 2006).

Zanzibar: A drug-fuelled paradise?

Crouching in small fishing boats and dugout canoes on the shore of Malindi, Stone Town's port are a number of young men injecting themselves with a cocktail of heroin and cocaine.

It is a scene at odds with Zanzibar's image of an exotic beach paradise for well-heeled tourists, but for a growing number of Zanzibaris this is the reality of life on an impoverished island off the coast of Tanzania.

The BBC reports.

'Adopt out' the children of drug addicts

A major parliamentary inquiry in Australia has recommended young children be taken away from drug-addicted parents permanently and adopted out.

The Canberra Times reports.

Narcotic addiction and cultural crisis in the USA, 1870-1920 (book)

Timothy Alton Hickman, The secret leprosy of modern days: narcotic addiction and cultural crisis in the United States, 1870-1920 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007). Hickman has written many related articles in medical and health journals. Based on a 1997 doctoral dissertation at the University of California, Irvine.

Colonial Dutch government policy on drug use in Java (article)

Eric W. van Luijk and Jan C. van Ours, "The Effects of Government Policy on Drug Use: Java, 1875-1904," Journal of Economic History 61/1 (March 2001): 1-18.

Drugs in American culture (dissertation)

David L. Herzberg, "Designer conciousness: medicine, marketing, and identity in American culture from Miltown to Prozac" (Ph.D. dissertatin, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2005).

Globalization and the narcotics trade

For how globalization is changing the narcotics trade, 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

Jesús Malverde, Mexico's narco-saint

Jesús Malverde, a Robin Hood figure apparently hanged as a bandit shortly before the Mexican Revolution of 1910, has become Mexico's narco-saint, reverenced by drug dealers, first in Sinaloa and other northern parts of the country and then in the capital. For more, see the Washington Post article, here. He has become a figure in popular culture, remembered in films and song, most recently hip-hop.

British Crime Survey identifies alcohol as a greater problem than drugs

According to the annual British Crime Survey released by the Home Office in July 2007 almost half of violent crime is alcohol related, only 17% drug related. Illicit drug usage was at the lowest level since 1995. For more, see here.

Guinea-Bissau, allegedly Africa's first narco-state

According to the (London) Independent, 17 July 2007, drug gangs control Guinea-Bissau, a small West African state that formerly had been a Portuguese colony. For more, see here.

Special issue on alcohol and drugs in the history of Latin America

The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal, is planning a special issue on alcohol and drugs in the history of Latin America. We encourage paper submissions in any aspect of this broad theme. Deadline for submissions will be July 31, 2007.

Dan Malleck, PhD
Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Editor-in-chief, Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal
dan.malleck@BROCKU.CA
http://historyofalcoholanddrugs.typepad.com

Drugs and empire (book)

James H. Mills and Patricia Barton, eds., Drugs and Empires:
Essays in Modern Imperialism and Intoxication 1500-1930
(Palgrave, forthcoming 2007). Mosly about opium and to large extent about China.

Introduction; J.H.Mills & P. Barton
PART 1: CONSUMPTION
China, British imperialism and the myth of the 'Opium Plague'; F. Dikötter, L. Laamann & X. Zhou
Developing Habits: Opium and Tobacco in the Indonesian Archipelago, c. 1619-c. 1794; G.B.Souza
Early British encounters with the Indian opium eater; R.Newman
'Cannot we induce the people of England to eat opium?' The moral economy of opium in colonial India; J.F.Richards
PART 2: CONTROL
Opium and the Trading World of Western India in the Early Nineteenth Century; A.Farooqui
Dangerous Drinks and the Colonial State: 'Illicit' Gin Prohibition and Control in Colonial Nigeria; C.J.Korieh
Empire and Excise: Drugs and drink revenue and the fate of states in south Asia; M.J.Gilbert
Powders, Potions and Tablets: The 'quinine fraud' in British India, 1890 to 1939; P.Barton
PART 3: 'HIGH' POLITICS
Colonial Africa and the international politics of cannabis: Egypt, South Africa and the origins of global control; J.H.Mills
'A grave danger to the peace of the East': Opium and Imperial Rivalry in China, 1895-1920; W.O.Walker III
'Wolf by the Ears': The Dilemmas of Imperial Opium Policymaking in the 20th Century; W.B.McAllister
The Trade-Off: Chinese Opium Traders and Antebellum Reform in the United States, 1815-1860; K.Gray

Al Gore III and prescription pills

The recent traffic arrest of Al Gore III, son of the former American vice president and presidential candidate, revealed that he had been smoking marijuana and possessed several prescription medications without having the required prescriptions. Experts have used this incident to emphasize the increasing problem among young people--he is 24--of abuse of prescription drugs. For more, see here.

History of drugs in modern societies (review essay)

Alex Mold, "'Consuming Habits': History of Drugs in Modern Societies," Cultural and Social History 4/2 (June 2007): 261-270. Review essay.

Drug Czar Conference Video

This 6 DVD set provides the unedited proceedings of the historic Drug Czar Conference held on June 17th, 2006 at the University of Maryland. Sponsored by CESAR and the Institute for Behavior and Health, this one-day meeting of academics and policy experts featured seven of the eleven men who have served as heads of the White House drug abuse prevention office.

Each Drug Czar was given time to describe the major events of their appointment and their current thinking about the nation's drug policy. The panels were creatively moderated, promoting lively discussions within the 50-person group.

The unedited 6 DVD set can now be purchased for a reduced price of $75 (originally $95). Please send a completed order form and a check or purchase order to: CESAR, Attention: Drug Czar Video, 4321 Hartwick Rd, Ste 501, College Park, Md. 20740. We regret that we are unable to accept credit card payments.

CESAR's web site is www.cesar.umd.edu

(Thanks to Amy Benavides for the info and link.  Contact Amy here.)

More women in England and Wales guilty of drink or drug impaired driving

According to the (London) Independent, 18 June 2007, the number of women in England and Wales guilty of drunk or drugged driving has increased by almost 60% since 1995. For more, see here.

Jim Crow and southern origins of drug prohibition (article)

Michael M. Cohen, "Jim Crow's Drug War Race, Coca Cola, and the Southern Origins of Drug Prohibition," Southern Cultures 12/3 (Fall 2006): 55-79.

Training Afghans in drug enforcement

Belated training of Afghans in drug enforcement now includes Colombian officers. For more, see here.

Commodities of Empire (from H-Empire)

Readers of ADHS may be interested in this post which appeared on H-Empire:

CFP: "Commodities of Empire" international workshop, London, July 13-14,
2007

The Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies (Open University) and
the Caribbean Studies Centre (London Metropolitan University) have
launched a collaborative research project entitled 'Commodities of
Empire'. Details of this project can be found on our website:
http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/ferguson-centre/commodities-of-empire/index.h
tml

We are organising an international workshop in London, 13/14 July 2007,
and would like to hear from anybody interested in participating. We
would particularly like to hear from researchers wishing to attend from
Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America who are working on any
historical aspects of the global movement of commodities (i.e.
industrial crops, foodstuffs and stimulants).

For more details, please contact either Sandip Hazareesingh
(s.k.hazareesingh@open.ac.uk) or Jonathan Curry-Machado
(j.currymachado@londonmet.ac.uk).

Dr Jonathan Curry-Machado
Research Fellow
Caribbean Studies Centre
London Metropolitan University

National study shows 10% of U.S. adults abuse drugs

More than 10 percent of U.S. adults abuse or become addicted to drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and amphetamines at some point in their lives, but few get treatment, according to a study published on Monday.

MSNBC reports.

Finnish Alcohol and Drug Research Society (article)

Mikko Salasuo and Hanna Kuusi, "The Finnish Alcohol and Drug Research Society since 1960—an ‘agora’ of the information age," Addiction 102/5 (May2007): 693-695.

Drugs or tobacco: Which is worse?

The politics of drugs is often seen as a battle between the prohibitionists and the liberalisers, explains Mark Easton of the BBC. But after two years study and reflection, Britain's RSA Commission on Illegal Drugs calls for a quite different approach - a strategy based on reducing harm.

Smoking alters brain 'like drugs'

Smoking cigarettes causes the same changes to the brain as using illicit drugs like cocaine, a study suggests. The BBC reports.

New edition of Consuming Habits (book)

Consuming Habits: Global and Historical Perspectives on how Cultures Define Drugs, ed. Jordan Goodman and others, 2nd ed., Routledge, June 2007.

Psychoactive substances have been central to the formation of civilizations, the definition of cultural identities, and the growth of the world economy. The labeling of these substances as 'legal' or 'illegal' has diverted attention away from understanding their important cultural and historical role. This collection explores the rich analytical category of psychoactive substances from challenging historical and anthropological perspectives.

Covering a wide range of substances, including opium, cocaine, coffee, tobacco, kola, and betelnut, from prehistory to the present day, this new edition has been extensively updated, with an updated bibliography and two new chapters on cannabis and khat. Consuming Habits is the perfect companion for all those interested in how different cultures have defined drugs across the ages.

Jordan Goodman is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. His publications include The Rattlesnake: A Voyage of Discovery to the Coral Sea (2005).
Paul E. Lovejoy is Distinguished Research Professor and holds the Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History at York University. His publications include Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa (2nd edition, 2000).
Andrew Sherratt was Professor of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield. His most recent book was Economy and society in prehistoric Europe: changing perspectives (1997).

Table of Contents:
List of figures and tables
Notes on contributors
Preface
Introduction: Peculiar Substances Andrew Sherratt
1. Alcohol and its alternatives: symbol and substance in pre-industrial cultures Andrew Sherratt
2. Coca, beer, cigars and yag'e: meals and anti-meals in an Amerindinian community Stephen Hugh-Jones
3. Nicotian Dreams: the prehistory and early history of tobacco in eastern North America Alexander von Gernet
4. Betelnut ‘bisnis’ and cosmology: a view from Papua New Guinea Eric Hirsch
5. Kola nuts: the 'coffee' of the central Sudan Paul E. Lovejoy
6. Excitantia: Or, how enlightenment Europe took to soft drugs Jordan Goodman
7. From coffeehouse to parlour: the consumption of coffee, tea and sugar in northwestern Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Woodruff D. Smith
8. Tobacco use and tobacco taxation: a battle of interests in early modern Europe Jacob M. Price
9. Globalising Ganja: The British Empire and international cannabis traffic c. 1834 to c. 1939 James H. Mills
10. Japan and the world narcotics traffic Kathryn Meyer
11. The rise and fall and rise of cocaine in the United States David T. Courtwright
12. Building castles of spit – the role of khat in work, ritual and leisure Axel Klein and Susan Beckerleg
13. Afterword Jordan Goodman and Paul E. Lovejoy
Selected bibliography
Index

Alcohol & Drugs in history of Latin America (CFP)

The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal is planning a special issue on alcohol and drugs in the history of Latin America.

We encourage paper submissions in any aspect of this broad theme.

Deadline for submissions will be July 31, 2007.

Please see submission information in the website listed below, or contact me.

Dan Malleck, PhD
Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Editor-in-chief, Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal
dan.malleck@BROCKU.CA
http://historyofalcoholanddrugs.typepad.com

Lap of luxury breeds higher rates of teen substance abuse

With high-performing schools and a lack of street violence, affluent areas may seem free of dangers many parents fear could befall their children. But richer areas, more than poorer ones, often see teen alcohol and drug use at higher levels.

Contra Costa Times reports.

RADAR

RADAR, a project of the Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia, aims to promote awareness of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs research in Australia.

The register contains up-to-date records of current and recently completed research projects with details of published research. There is also information about researchers, their organisations and research funding bodies.

Special thanks to Steven Thompson for the link. 

How do politicians deal with drugs?

With David Cameron accused of smoking cannabis, a British politician is again in the spotlight over their alleged youthful use of soft drugs. It has become a familiar occurrence in recent years.  The BBC reports.

Mexico's President promises no respite in war on drugs

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said there will be "no truce or quarter" in his war on drug gangs after the killing of seven law enforcement officials in an apparent attempt to intimidate the federal government.

Find the full story 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.

Drugs in Afghanistan

A recent report concludes that Afghanistan is still losing the war on drugs.  Find the full story here.

Federal drug control (review)

David F. Musto and Pamela Korsmeyer, The Quest for Drug Control: Politics and Federal Policy in a Period of Increasing Substance Abuse, 1963-1981, reviewed by David T. Courtwright, 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).

For now, ERs generally skip drug tests

In Ohio, if emergency room doctors and nurses don’t test patients for alcohol or drug use, their hospitals have a better chance of being reimbursed by health-insurance companies.

Why? A 1953 Ohio law allows health-insurance companies to deny claims for injuries that result from alcohol or drug use. This can be costly for hospitals, especially trauma centers that provide expensive treatment for severely injured patients.

As a result, many hospitals don’t routinely screen patients.

Find the full story here.

Spotlight on drink and drugs blight

MORE than 250 experts will meet in Edinburgh today for a major conference on alcohol and drug use in Scotland.

The one-day gathering of senior police figures, academics and health experts at the Scottish Parliament will mark the launch of a year-long study on the subject by Holyrood's think-tank, Scotland's Futures Forum.

Read more here.

For aging drug users, it's hard to kick the habit

It's the generation that came of age in the permissive 1960s and '70s, part of the counterculture revolution that embraced the mantra "turn on, tune in, drop out." Now they are graying - but some are still having a hard time breaking away from or resisting marijuana, cocaine and other illegal drugs.

Find the full story here.

Proscribed Purchases in USA (call for papers)

Call For Papers: Proscribed Purchases: Banned, Restricted and Subversive
Consumption in United States History
2008 Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting
New York, New York
March 28-31, 2008

I am looking for participants to form a panel for the 2008 OAH
Annual Meeting in New York. The tentative title of the panel is
“Proscribed Purchases: Banned, Restricted and Subversive Consumption in
the United States.”

In recent decades U.S. historians of virtually every specialization
have created significant works of scholarship dealing with themes of
“deviance,” cultural subversion and transgression. Despite their inherent
commonalities, many of these works tend to address disparate topics and
employ different methodologies, and their audience or influence is often
limited to a distinct subfield within the larger field of United States
history.
This panel seeks to address topics of “deviance” or transgression in
the United States across lines of specialization and field by focusing on
these themes’ relationship to consumption and commercial market forces.
More specifically, I am seeking papers that deal with commercial
activities and consumer goods that are banned or heavily restricted by
law. Panelists will make the market-, commercial- or consumer-oriented
aspects of their topic a main focus of their papers. Although it is
important that the focus of papers be retrospective, submissions from all
disciplines, and not just history, are invited.
My own work deals with youth and marijuana culture in the 1970s.
A selection of possible paper topics includes, but is not limited to, the
following:
--Pornography
--Alcohol and tobacco
--Embargoed trade or goods
--Prostitution
--Any type of black market
--Bootleg or counterfeit goods
--Sites of consumption that were at one time or another prohibited or
heavily restricted: speakeasies, gay bars, etc.
--Banned publications and visual media.
Any potential panelist should indicate their interest by sending
an email to Joshua Davis (at jcdavis@email.unc.edu) as soon as possible,
and also submit an abstract of 250 words or less along with a CV no later
than January 1, 2007.

Joshua C. Davis
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Khoikhoi narcotic consumption, 1487-1870 (article)

David Gordon, "From Rituals of Rapture to Dependence: The Political Economy of Khoikhoi Narcotic Consumption, c. 1487 - 1870," South African Historical Journal 35 (1996): 62-88.

Cost of drug prohibition in Australia (paper)

John Jiggens, "The Cost of Drug Prohibition in Australia," paper presented to the Social Change in the 21st Century Conference, Centre for Social Change Research, Queensland University of Technology, 28 October 2005. For text of paper, see here.

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.

Women and morphinomania (article)

Susan Zieger, "'How Far am I Responsible?': Women and Morphinomania in Late-Nineteenth-Century Britain," Victorian Studies 48/1 (2005), 59-81.

UN World Drugs Report 2006

The UN World Drugs Report 2006 can be downloaded here. The web introduction states: "some 200 million people, or 5 percent of the global population age 15-64, have used illicit drugs at least once in the last 12 months."

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.

Home-delivered pot

In Manhattan home-delivered pot is increasingly popular. Users avoid dangerous neighborhoods. Nor is there any suspicion when a well-groomed delivery man rings the doorbell at a middle-class apartment. For more, see the New York Times, 6 November 2006 article here.

Conservative review of Timothy Leary's biography (review)

Jesse Walker (managing editor of Reason), "The Acid Guru’s Long, Strange Trip," American Conservative, November 6, 2006, reviews Timothy Leary: A Biography by Robert Greenfield (Harcourt, 689 pages). For more, see here.

A moral history of anti-drug laws (book)

George Fisher, a law professor at Stanford, has written a book manuscript, Alcohol Monogamy: A Moral History of Anti-Drug Laws. For selections, see here. As part of an October 2006 workshop, he made available a part of his book manuscript about San Francisco banning early opium dens.

British voluntary drug organization (article)

Alex Mold, "'The Welfare Branch of the Alternative Society?' The Work of Drug Voluntary Organization Release, 1967-1978," 20th Century British History 17/1 (2006): 50-73.

Parsons and Campbell on Tracy and Acker's history of alcohol and drug use in the USA (reviews)

Elaine Frantz Parsons's review of Sarah W. Tracy and Caroline Jean Acker, Altering American Consciousness: The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800-2000 (2004) in
Annals of Iowa 2005 64(1): 81-83; and Nancy P. Campbell's review of the same book in Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 2006 61(1): 96-99.

What lifts people out of addiction?

Pittsburgh's Post-Gazette reports on the dilemma of resorting to medication to ease the pains of addiction.

Authorities say over 15 tons of drugs seized in Afghanistan

Afghan authorities seized over 16 tons of drugs in the past 10 days in operations targeting smugglers in seven provinces, Afghanistan's top counter-narcotics official said. Read more here.

Drug-taking BBC presenter

According to the (London) Observer, 8 Oct. 2006, the BBC has defended its star presenter Graham Norton who recently admitted in a magazine interview that he has taken "loads of drugs." For more, see here.

Addersall "smart" pills

The University of Hawaii (according to U-Wire, 6 Oct. 06) reports a problem: undergraduates taking Addersall (little orange "smart" pills, an amphetamine). Consequences vary, with most students saying that taking a pill is like drinking ten cups of coffee.

Medicalizing addictions, criminalizing addicts (dissertation)

Jason Edwin Glenn, "Medicalizing addictions, criminalizing addicts: Race, politics and profit in narratives of addiction" (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University. 2005). War on Drugs.

Drugs and trucks

Drug use is a growing problem among truck drivers operating big rigs on New Zealand's highways, say police. The New Zealand Herald reports.

Half of teen drug, alcohol use slips by parents

Parents may be unaware as much as half of the time that their teenagers are using drugs or alcohol, say researchers who compared reports from both generations. The CBC reports.

drugs in America, 1945-2000 (book review)

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

Martin Torgoff. Can’t Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age.
New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004. 545 pp. Paper. $16.00. isbn
0743230116. Reviewed by Alexine Fleck, Department of English, University of
Pennsylvania.

Martin Torgoff opens his cultural history, Can’t Find My Way Home: America
in the Great Stoned Age, 1945-2000, with a description of himself as a teenager,
getting stoned with his friends. As they ponder their high, Torgoff’s father ar-
rives and, in frustration, challenges Torgoff: “Go ahead and tell me—what did
any of it really mean?” (13). Can’t Find My Way Home is Torgoff’s expansive,
ambitious and sometimes overwhelming answer to this challenge. He bookends
this project with memoir, arguing that his drug use and even his addiction were
necessary steps to figure out who he really is. The same is true, he argues, for
America. Although he eventually quit taking drugs, Torgoff does not believe
that all drug use leads to addiction, or that all drugs are evil siren songs of false
consciousness. Rather than identifying ways that drug use brings people to their
lowest points, Torgoff finds the moments where drug experimentation has in-
spired bursts of imagination, creative discovery, and idealistic leaps of faith.
According to Torgoff, America’s Stoned Age began with jazz musicians, who
took heroin hoping that it would help them create music like their hero, Char-
lie “Bird” Parker. Meanwhile, the Beats experimented with heroin and prose,
“reaching in,” according to Ken Kesey, “to wrench the language apart” (95).
The creations of these two groups challenged form and convention, providing
an early illustration of Torgoff’s thesis about the relationship between drugs and
creativity. Indeed, this project rests on the belief that drugs played a significant
role in some of the gestalt switches in American popular culture. If we are to un-
derstand the moments when creative supernova burned brightly, if briefly, we
need to understand the way a syringe of opiates, or line of cocaine, or even a fat
joint acted on the right mind at the right place in the right time to produce music
like “Lover Man” or “Purple Haze,” literature like Howl or One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest, or cultural-political movements like Woodstock or the Diggers.
We also must understand how drug profits created the cynical, hyperviolent un-
derground economy that eventually spread like kudzu through the Eden of early
idealistic, drug-fuelled communities. Only then can we counteract the “cultural
amnesia about drugs that has become so pervasive that we scarcely even notice
it, let alone discuss it” (468).

Moving from jazz and beat literature, Torgoff turns to the Harvard psychedelic
movement, the Merry Pranksters, Acid-drenched Woodstock, and Andy
Warhol’s speed-fuelled Factory. Drug use helped propel the anti-war movement
just as it soothed the frayed nerves of soldiers in Vietnam and helped derail the
Black Power movement. The idealism of the 1960s gave way to the violent infil-
tration of people like Charlie Manson, the hippie doppelganger. Then the police
arrived to break up the party. Torgoff even describes what he calls the “Age of
Recovery,” the “only real revolution,” according to Ronnie Cutrone (375-76). A
new generation discovers new drugs, new art, new revolutions. In his conclud-
ing return to memoir, Torgoff gazes into the eyes of one member of this new
stoned generation and wishes him a good trip, even as he knows that he can no
longer go along for the ride.

After a decade of research, Torgoff writes like he is telling a story he knows by
heart and his prose, both passionate and playful, is a delight to read. He displays
empathy for both the heroes and villains of the story, capturing their voices and
the tenor of each period and each drug as effectively as he displays his early
bravado about drug use: “The only time I ever turned down a drug was when
I didn’t understand the question” (13). The larger question he is trying to an-
swer, however, relies on – and thereby replicates – another sort of historical and
cultural amnesia. By beginning his history at the conclusion of World War II,
Torgoff neglects the first wave of drug use and addiction. More troubling is the
absence of stories about users who were not making art or leading cultural or
political movements. The absence of the inner life of street-level addicts, invisi-
ble if this history relies on creative artifacts, implies that the experiences of some
are more equal than others and the interiority of the educated and articulate is
more significant than – or simply representative of – the drug experiences of
all. Echoing De Quincey [“If a man ‘whose talk is of oxen’, should become an
opium-eater, the probability is, that (if he is not too dull to dream at all) – he
will dream about oxen” (DeQuincey 1971, 33) ] Timothy Leary articulates the
assumption directly: “It was wonderful for thin intellectuals like Aldous Huxley
and me to get high and suddenly enjoy the pleasures of the body and aesthetics
and sensuality and music . . . What I didn’t realize was that eighty percent of the
people out there are not motivated, and . . . marijuana . . . could take away what
little motivation they might have had” (416). Since this history is about drug use
from the inside and because it relies so heavily on written or musical artifacts,
it is easy to see how the street-level junkie or piper might not make it into the
story, but I cannot help but wish they had gotten the same thorough, respect-
ful and empathic treatment as the rest of the players in this otherwise thorough
cultural history of American drug use.

Perhaps this is an impossible request. Nietzsche once asked, “Who will ever
relate the whole history of narcotica? – It is almost the history of ‘culture,’ of our
so called high culture” (Nietzsche 1971, §86). By choosing to limit his subject
primarily to the interior life of the creative elite, the idealistic proto-environ-
mentalists, the counter-cultural visionaries, Torgoff narrows his book into a
barely-manageable 476 pages (not including notes). His history captures a sig-
nificant portion of this high culture, describing how drugs helped expand the
creative consciousness of some people. Whatever he omitted only challenges
the rest of us to fill in his gaps with similar devotion, respect and humor.

References
De Quincey, Thomas. 1971. Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Ed. Ale-
thea Hayter. New York: Penguin Books.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1974. The Gay Science. Trans Walter Kaufmann. New
York: Vintage Books.

drug smuggling in Southeast Asia (book review)

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

Eric Tagliacozzo. Secret Trades, Porous Borders: Smuggling and States Along a
Southeast Asian Frontier, 1865-1915. Yale University Press, 2005. 454 pp. Cloth.
$55.00. isbn 0300089686. Reviewed by Anne L. Foster, Indiana State University.

For historians of the twentieth century, the words “drugs” and “smuggling”
seem to go together naturally. For most of the century just past, many drugs
have been illegal or heavily regulated, and private citizens have had reason to
smuggle them across all kinds of borders. Scholars who have explored drug
smuggling have primarily been interested either in the types of crime it prompts
across society more broadly, or how new modes of consumption and new types
of consumers have developed in response to an illegal market. Eric Tagliacozzo
wants us to think about smuggling in a different way. He even uses different
phrases, “secret trade” or “undertrade” to describe illicit trading across bor-
ders. And he is interested not merely, indeed not principally, in illicit trading
of drugs. Rather, he wants to understand the relationship of these secret trades
to the growing power of the imperial state in insular Southeast Asia and to the
limitations on that power. His book argues that the persistence of undertrad-
ing demonstrates forcefully that European colonial states were often quite weak,
and that European insistence on recognition of borders often flew in the face of
ages-old trade and cultural patterns.

The first half of the book explores the ways in which Europeans, sojourn-
ing Asians, and indigenous peoples in insular Southeast Asia during the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries imagined and contested the bound-
aries increasingly drawn around modern political entities known as colonies.
Europeans created the nation states which now make up Southeast Asia out of
diverse and sometimes indistinct political bodies during the nineteenth century.
Drawing boundaries, and then regulating and taxing trade across those bound-
aries was a key project of European imperial states. Smuggling of various types,
including of people, commodities, weapons, and even ideas, challenged the abil-
299Smuggling and States Along a Southeast Asian Frontier, 1865-1915
ity of imperial states to collect taxes and pay their way, but also challenged the
imperial project in more fundamental ways, calling into question the notions
of national identity, loyalty, and power that motivated many colonial officials.
Tagliacozzo’s extensive and impressive research in British and especially Dutch
colonial and foreign ministry records provides persuasive evidence of a world
of contested power, realistic European fears about a variety of threats, and a
geography of rivers, ports, islands, and dense vegetation in insular Southeast
Asia which aided those engaged in secret trading to the detriment of those at-
tempting to control it.

The second half of the book explores these issues as they played out in the
undertrading of four commodities (opium, counterfeit money, people, and
weapons) and in the experience of one ship, the Kim Ban An in the world of se-
cret trading and subsequently in the Dutch legal system after being apprehended
in a blockade. The research in these chapters is even more impressive, since
research into smuggling is notoriously difficult, and even more so in a nine-
teenth-century colonial region where climate and insect conditions have often
led to the destruction of paper records. For anyone interested in smuggling in
general, these chapters are all worthwhile. Tagliacozzo paints a fascinating pic-
ture of the traders who have been labeled as smugglers, but who were as likely to
engage in licit as illicit trade, both from voyage to voyage and even with mixed
cargoes on a single voyage. He reminds us as well that not all smuggling was of
illegal commodities; smuggling was often for the purpose of evading taxes and
increasing profit margins.

The one chapter devoted solely to opium contains many fascinating sto-
ries of smugglers and smuggling. In one, American smugglers of opium into
the Dutch-controlled Indies told local inhabitants they were Russians to keep
Dutch police off their trail. It worked until the locals described the stars-and-
stripes covered ship to the police (195). In the years and areas that Tagliacozzo
explores, opium was legal and under various forms of state monopoly. In these
circumstances, the most prolific and successful smugglers were those who had
legal access to opium in quantity, meaning those charged with administering the
monopoly. The sources tend to suggest a greater involvement of ethnic Chinese
(who usually retailed the opium) than of Europeans (who were involved in im-
port and distribution to retailers). It is probable, however, that ethnic Chinese
were simply more likely to be caught. Additionally, Tagliacozzo suggests that
the medicinal and addictive nature of opium contributed to its status as prob-
ably the most smuggled, and most profitably smuggled, commodity.
This chapter, like the book as a whole, seems designed to appeal to those who
are not specialists in Southeast Asia. Tagliacozzo makes arguments potentially
applicable to other regions and other commodities, especially to other addic-
tive substances. The breadth of Tagliacozzo’s analysis, extending as it does to all
kinds of cross-border resistance to state authority, however, necessarily means
he has to deal quickly with topics that non-specialists may find puzzling. In the
narcotics chapter, for instance, the relationship between the changing nature of
the state monopolies over opium in the late nineteenth and twentieth century
and the efforts of imperial states to extend their power is left nearly unexplained.
The full importance of his argument is therefore difficult for non-specialists to
appreciate.

Secret Trades provides new, persuasive ways to think about the meanings and
purposes of smuggling. Reconceptualizing the boundary between illicit and licit
commodities, since both are smuggled, prompts historians of drugs to situate
themselves in the historiography of commodities. Tagliacozzo’s argument that
smuggling was both a form of resistance to imperial power, and an impetus to
the strengthening of that power, connects what appears to be mere criminal
activity to the state-formation project. His work encourages scholars in these
areas to think more broadly about issues of power, resistance, consumption,
and exchange.

US Food & Drug Administration (book review)

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

Philip J. Hilts. Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
424 pp. Paper. $19.95. isbn 0807855820. Reviewed by Stephen Ceccoli, Rhodes
College.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has an enormous regulatory
responsibility. It regulates products amounting to over one quarter of every dol-
lar spent by Americans in industries ranging from foods to drugs to cosmetics
to medical devices. In Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One
Hundred Years of Regulation, Philip Hilts effectively traces the history of Ameri-
can drug regulation. In doing so, he argues that the evolution of American drug
regulation must be understood in the context of other parallel phenomena, in-
cluding the emergence of American commerce, the rise of the pharmaceutical
industry, and the birth of modern medical science.

Hilts begins by introducing Harvey Washington Wiley, the nineteenth-
century progressive who became, essentially, the forerunner to today’s FDA
Commissioner. Hilts asserts that, “business had shown in the nineteenth century that it could not well serve two masters—it could not seek profit with a
single-minded energy and at the same time take care that citizens were protected
from the injustices and injuries that its actions and practices might cause” (12-
13). Wiley’s appointment came in an era when “corp