Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Introducing Chinese tea to India (book review)

Adrian Higgins, in Washington Post, March 28, 2010), reviewing Sarah Rose, For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History.  In fact, it was a Scotsman Robert Fortune (1812-1880) who smuggled tea plants out of China to create tea plantations in India.

Buckfast Tonic Wine and Scottish alcoholism

The New York Times featured a story about Buckfast Tonic Wine (a sweet caffeinated alcoholic drink) as the symbol of Scottish alcoholism, particularly in the so-called Buckfast Belt, the old industrial region of Lowlands Scotland.  Politicians decry the drink, but its enthusiasts defend their "Buckie."  For more, see here.

Scottish women and temperance organizations (book)

Megan Smitley, The Feminine Public Sphere: Middle-Class Women and Civic Life in Scotland, c 1870-1914 (Manchester UP, 2009).  Available in USA in February 2010.

Drunkenness and temperance in Scotland, then and now

For a sketch of drunkenness and temperance in Scotland, see here. Googling "drunken Scot" produces 8.6 million results as compared with 78,000 for "drunken Irishman."

Program for 5th International Conference on the History of Alcohol and Drugs

Below the fold is the program for the 5th International Conference on the History of Alcohol and Drugs: The Pathways to Prohibition, June 26-28, 2009, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland.  Thanks to Dan Malleck, secretary-treasurer of the Alcohol & Drugs History Society and editor of the Social History of Alcohol & Drugs, for this material.

The 5^th International Conference on the History of Alcohol and Drugs:

The Pathways to Prohibition,

26-28^th June 2009

 

PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME

 

Thursday 25^th June

 

The Registration Desk will be open from 2.00pm in the Conservatory, Third Floor, McCance Building, Richmond St, University of Strathclyde, John Anderson Campus.  Those arriving on Thursday are welcome to meet us in the Conservatory at 6.30pm before going on to a local restaurant.

 

Friday 26^th June

 

9.00- 10.00am Registration and Coffee, Conservatory, McCance Building Level Three

 

10.00- 11.00am Keynote Address, McCance 1, Level Three

Parasite men, Foreigners Dangerous: Police-Medical Discourse and Social representations around the drug Consumer in Chile 1920-1960, Marcos Fernández Labbé,            Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, Chile

 

 

11.00- 12.30

 

McCance Room 2, Level Three

 

On Prohibiting Prohibition, David Courtwright, University of North Florida, US

50th Anniversary of the Organized Temperance Movement in Russia, A. N. Mayurov, Russia

The Last Tyrant: Prohibition and Positive Freedom, James Nicholls, Bath Spa, UK

The futile Prohibitions and the Rise of the Totalitarian State: The Case of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Dmitry Shlapentokh, Indiana, South Bend, US

 

 

McCance Room 3, Level Three

 

Drunk on fixed air: competing attempts to define the principle of intoxication in eighteenth century Britain, James Sumner, University of Manchester, UK

College Students, Prohibition and the State Investigation of 1888, Michael S. Hevel, Iowa, USA

“What a fine mind was wrecked by his want of self-government”: Family, Abstinence, and Prohibition Politics in Antebellum Massachusetts, Lee V. Chambers, Colorado, US

 

 

12.30- 2.00pm Lunch, McCance Conservatory

 

2.00-3.30pm

McCance Room 2

 

The Origins of the Drug War in California, Dale Gieringer

Opium and the Harrison Act, Mike Gray

Acts of Faith: Protestant Missionaries, Founding Fathers of the War on Drugs, Jerry Mandel

 

McCance Room 3

Finnish prohibition: Women’s Accomplishment? Aija Kaartinen,            Finnish Foundation of Alcohol Studies, Finland

“To rescue their country from Intemperance”: Manchester Women and their teetotal Retreat 1890-1919 Cynthia Belaskie, University of York, Toronto, Canada

Women and Smoking in Canada during Prohibition, Sharon Anne Cook, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Education, Canada

Alcoholism in Formosan Indigenous Tribes: State Bribery and Self Medication, 1945 Onwards, Harry Yi-Jui Wu, University of Oxford, UK

 

3.30- 4.00pm Tea, McCance Conservatory

 

4.00- 5.30pm

 

McCance Room 2

 

Khat- A New Frontier in the War on Drugs, Axel Klein, University of Kent, UK

Controlling Khat in Colonial Kenya: The Rise of the ‘Miraa Ordinance’, Neil Carrier, University of Oxford, UK

East African Discourses on Khat and Sex, Susan Beckerleg, University of Warwick, UK

Conflict and Khat Use in Somalia, Michael Odenwald           

 

McCance Room 3

 

The Two Births of Addiction, Jonathan Lewy, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

Framing Alcohol as a Medical Problem in British India c. 1858- 1947, Waltraud Ernst, Oxford Brookes University, UK

Technocrats, Winegrowers and the Battle against Alcoholism in 1950s France, Joseph Bohling, University of California Berkeley. US

Will ye no come back again: the impact of the no licence vote in Wick, Rowdy Yates, University of Stirling, UK

 

McCance Room 4.02

The Durand line, the Pashtun and Afghan- Pakistan Politics, James Bradford. Northeastern University, US

The cannabis Infringement Notice Scheme in Western Australia, Thomas Crofts, Murdoch School of Law, Australia

Ending the War on Drugs- Strategies for Transforming Global Drug Policy, Danny Kushlick, Transform Drug Policy Foundation, Bristol

After the War on Drugs: Blueprints for a Regulated Market, Emily Krick, Transform Drug Policy Foundation, Bristol

 

6.30pm  Evening Reception, Glasgow City Chambers, George Square

 

7.30pm Conference Dinner, Arta Restaurant, Albion Street, Glasgow Merchant City

 

Saturday 27^th June

 

9.00 Refreshments available in Conservatory, McCance Building

 

9.30- 11.00am

 

McCance Room 2

 

Chair: Richard F. Hamm, University at Albany, SUNY

Vichy's Greatest Victory?  The Unheralded  Triumph of The Collaborationist Government's Regulations, Scott Haine, University of Maryland University College, USA

The U. S. Adopts Strict Alcohol Regulation in 1933: The Case of Washington State, Bill Rorabaugh, Department of History, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

Pathways from prohibition: recreating public Drinking in Ontario, 1934-1944, Dan Malleck, Brock University, Canada

 

 

McCance Room 3

 

Drug Politics in Iran: A Bumpy Road to Harm Reduction, David Arn, University of Zurich, Switzerland

“Inaugurating a reign of Christian virtue, he forbade the transportation and sale of opium”: Russian Encounters with the opium consumer in Muslim Central Asia, 1867-191, Alisher Latypov, University College London, UK

Anslinger’s Dismissive Rhetoric: Denying Deliberation via the ABA-AMA interim Report, 1958, Daniel M. Larson, Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, US

Cannibis Policy in Post-War Britain, Jim Mills, University of Strathclyde, UK

 

 

11.00- 11.30am Coffee

 

11.30- 1.00pm

 

McCance Room  2

 

Tracking the “Drunken Native”: Alcohol, Native peoples and Extinctionist Thought, Charles Ambler, University of Texas, US

Two Meanings of Prohibition  (The Salish and Sekhani Peoples of Canada), Bruce Alexander, Simon Fraser Univeristy, Canada

“Temperance in All things”: The Ideology of Alcohol Bans in United States Communitarian Societies, 1825-1850, Gwynne Langley Rivers, Illinois, US

Prohibition in Pennsylvannia’s Lehigh Valley, Adam Bentz, Lehigh, Bethlehem, Penn., USA

 

McCance Room 3

 

A History of Psychotropic Drug Uses.  Between Healing, Tuning and Enhancing the Mind, Stephan Snelders, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Prohibition, Psychiatry, and Psychotropic Drugs in Denmark, 1880-1955, Jesper V. Kragh, Medical Museion, Copenhagen., Denmark

From Dr Freud to Junkie Felscherinow: Changing perceptions of drug use during Germany’s path to prohibition, Victoria Harris, King’s College, University of Cambridge, UK

 

 

1.00-2.00pm Lunch, McCance Conservatory

 

2.00- 5.00pm Visit to Loch Lomond and the Glengoyne Distillery

 

5.00pm Reception, Conservatory, McCance Building

 

6.00- 7.00pm Keynote Address, McCance Room 1

Testing the Paradigm with Alcohol and Drugs, Professor David Kyvig, Northern Illinois University.

 

 

Sunday 28^th June

 

9.30am  Refreshments available, Conservatory, McCance Building

 

10.00- 11.30am

 

McCance Room 2

 

From Development of Addiction to the Threshold of Prohibition.  Aspects of Drug Use and Abuse in Tennessee ca., 1830-1920, James B.  Jones, Tennessee Historical Commission, US

Some Episodes about the enactment of the Federal Hospital of Addicts in Mexico City, Silvia Elena Vélez Quero,            Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Mexico

Marijuana as a Treatment for Neurosis, Marco Antonio Valdovinos, Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico

 

McCance Room 3

 

Evangelical male friendships in America’s first age of reform. A case study of the early American Temperance Society, Jessica Warner, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Canada

Roosevelt and the New York City Liquor Law of 1895, Kevin Birney, Davidson College, NC, US

Panic over the Pub: Drink and the First World War, Robert Duncan, University of St Andrew’s, UK

Responses to Temperance and Prohibition: The Crusade against Alcohol and the Irish Ether Drinking Epidemics c 1840-1900, Laura Kelly and Ian Miller, University of Manchester, UK

 

McCance Rm 4.02

 

Heroin in Harbin, Kathryn Meyer, Wright State, Ohio, US

The Prohibition of Opium in Iran, Rami Regavim, University of Pennsylvania, USA 

Tracking the Cocaine Trail: The Politics of Narcotics in Bengal and Burma in the Inter-war Period, Patricia Barton, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

 

 

11.30- 12.00 Coffee

 

12.00- 1.30pm

 

McCance Room 2

 

Hashish Smokers and Heroin Junkies: Representations in Inter-War Greece, Kostis Gotsinas, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France

The Failure of Cannabis Use Decriminalization in France at the end of the Nineties, Nicolas Fortane, Université Lumière-Lyon, France

Gernot Klantsching, The Making of the National Drug Problem in Pre-Civil War Nigeria: the Colonial State, Doctors and Soldiers on Indian Hemp, University of Nottingham, Ningbo

 

McCance Room 3

 

“Alcohol is the enemy of the Rise of Asia”: Alcohol and War in Manchukuo, Norman Smith, University of Guelph, Canada

Scottish Inebriate Reformatories, 1901-1925: Lessons from the Last Alcohol Epidemic, Iain Smith, Gartnavel Royal Hospital, Glasgow, UK

Alcohol-reduction Campaigns in Comparative Perspective, 1970-2008, Terry L. Rentner and Lara Lengel, Bowling Green State University, US

‘He is an excellent doctor if called when sober’: US Physicians Embrace Temperance, 1800-1860, Scott Martin, Bowling Green State University, US.

 

 

McCance Room 4.02

 

Vancouver’s Supervised Injection Site: Origins, Public Acceptance, and the Road Ahead, Neil Boyd, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Victims or Villains?: Young People and the Rise of the War on Drugs in the United States, Alex Kreit, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, US

From “Voluntary” to “Legislation”: The debates on Smoking and Advertising Prohibitions in the Federal Republic of Germany, Kraig Larkin, SUNY, US

 

1.30- 2.30pm Lunch, McCance Conservatory

                       Society Meeting , McCance Rm. 2

 

2.30pm Close of Conference

 

 

The conference organisers would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society, the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare, the Wellcome Trust and the Bowling Green State University Graduate Program in Policy History.

 

 

The 5th International Conference on the History of Drugs and Alcohol: The Pathways to Prohibition

The 5th International Conference on the History of Drugs and Alcohol: The Pathways to Prohibition,

26-28th June 2009, CSHHH, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland

When John Shanks acquired the Barrhead pottery company to establish his “sanitary engineering workshop” in the late nineteenth century, the decision was more than a simple business one. The man who was to become the President of the Barrhead Evangelist Association chose the town, which bordered Glasgow, as it had the reputation of having the highest number of pubs per head of population. Workers had to sign the temperance pledge to ensure employment. Shanks was following in the footsteps of temperance campaigner Sir William Collins, Glasgow book publisher and Lord Provost who earned the nickname “Water Willie”. In Britain, however, the impact of such campaigners remained local, and only those who adopted the global/colonial platform against intoxicants met with success. Such limited influence paved the ground for the British anti-intoxicant policy of the twentieth century which rejected prohibition for the medical solution, ultimately another localised response to local problems. The conference is seeking papers on the broad subject of the ‘pathways to prohibition’, the underlying motives governing policy and reactions to policymaking across the globe. Proposed papers or panels can be on any topic in the history of drugs and alcohol, but some issues to be considered include the ways in which the cultures of consumption evolved to meet the challenge of prohibition; the impact upon previously good citizens, including distillers and brewers, whose activities were now criminalised; the changing images of consumption under prohibition policies; the construction of consumption which underlay decisions to instigate prohibition or reject it; the effectiveness of the merging of local initiatives with national and international politics of prohibition.

Abstracts of proposed papers (no more than 500 words long) or of proposed panels should be sent by email, fax or post by November 15th 2008 to Dr Patricia Barton CSHHH Dept of History University of Strathclyde 16 Richmond Street Glasgow G1 1XQ Scotland E: [email protected] Tel: 44 (0)141 548 2932/ Fax: 44 (0)141 552 8509

Japanese whiskies better than Scotland's?

According to a taste test in Glasgow (of all places) Nikka's 1987 Yoichi was the best single malt in the competition, while rival distillery Suntory's 30-year-old Hibiki was the best blended whiskey.  For more, from the (London) Guardian, see here.

Flintshire pubs and breweries (book)

David Rowe, Flintshire Pubs and Breweries (History Press, Ltd., forthcoming 2009).

Scottish government's "Framework for Action on Alcohol"

David Trippel draws attenation to the Scottish government's new "Framework for Action on Alcohol" here

Doctors support it

and retailers protest it.

"Sickly sweet and laced with caffeine"

The Benedictine monks at Buckfast Abbey in Devon produce a tonic wine for old ladies that has become the iconic drink for antisocial "neds" in Scotland or so say its critics.  Without advertising, Buckfast tonic wine, 15% abv, had attracted a youthful following that seems to grow whenever it is denounced.  For more, see here. A thank you to David Trippel for the tip about this unappealing drink.