Any collection that adds to the multidisciplinary Canadian literature on the many and varied responses to drug use in our country’s history is welcome. Differing social evaluations, a range of legal controls, and heightened public concerns make citizens’ use of and access to recreational substances a highly contested topic. I thus approached this book with considerable anticipation of a stimulating and novel set of chapters with current relevance.
While each paper is not without interest, the overall content fails to bring together “a broad range of recent writing on as wide a range of drugs as possible” (p. x). None of the chapters focus on cannabis, cocaine, or crack, the substances that most occupy criminal justice and public debates. The only chapter on heroin is set in the post-World World II era. The book deals instead with tobacco, LSD, glue, alcohol, and club drugs, which diminishes the book’s potential to contribute “to a more rational and informed debate” on drug policy (p. x). Enthusiastic historical scholars may be pleased to find papers about pre-1970s issues. Those interested in current drug policy may be disappointed—only two of the ten chapters address current issues.
The inclusion of chapters on both legal and illegal drugs reminds readers that the legal status of a substance can change over time. Rudy’s chapter on early conflicts over smoking (1892–1914) reveals that the prohibition of cigarettes had strong, though ultimately unsuccessful, advocates. Cook’s chapter on the evolution of the female smoker (1920–1960) illustrates the decline of stigma that enabled women to join men as nicotine addicts. Both chapters might have been made more relevant by considering current proposals on cigarette bans or the recurrence of negative imagery around smoking. Malleck’s chapter describing the handling of liquor outlet permits (1927–1944) elaborates the cultural context and assumptions that directed decisions about regulatory controls. Marquis traces the shift in Canada from a disease model to a public health model based on the integration of research on alcohol and other drugs conducted by Ontario’s Addiction Research Foundation (ARF) in the 1960s. While in the past this model helped to shape the Canadian approach to substance use issues, this chapter leaves a somewhat misleading impression, because such an approach no longer characterizes Canadian drug policy.
Martel’s chapter on the debates over how to control LSD and glue sniffing in the 1960s further highlights the role of ARF experts. Their opinions helped to defuse the moral panic over LSD and persuaded the government not to ban glue. The accounts of the ARF’s early influence are especially noteworthy, given the eclipse of its current role as an evidence-based source for drug policy since its merger with psychiatric institutions to create the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in 1998.
Regarding currently illicit drugs, Carstairs examines the culture and repression of opiate users in the post-World War II period up to 1961. Grayson provides a counterpoint with a chapter on the harsh responses to club drugs in the 2000s. Taken together, these chapters demonstrate that now, as in the past, relatively small populations have been systematically subjected to police intervention, despite little understanding of the threats posed by these substances or the effectiveness of such punitive tactics.
The two most valuable chapters from the point of view of current drug policy awareness are from Beauchesne, on the values inherent in policy choices, and Moore, on the limits of drug treatment imposed by drug courts. Both chapters would be valuable reading for those concerned about Canada’s new Anti-Drug Strategy, the punitive provisions against drug offences in the Omnibus Crime Bill passed in 2012, and the loss of harm reduction from the national strategy.
In sum, while the individual authors display strength in historical scholarship, the collection covers a limited number of substances and periods. The omission of cocaine and crack is puzzling, especially since Glenn Murray’s excellent paper “Cocaine use in the era of social reform: The natural history of a social problem in Canada, 1880-1911,” published in 1987 in this journal, could have been reprinted. According to the editor’s preface, the impetus for this book appears to have been the need to explore the controversies in current drug policy, yet most selections do not address them. While lawyer Alan Young’s afterword is a spirited but personal polemic attacking criminalization of drug use, and attempts to remedy the neglect of cannabis, Young still fears that even those who read these histories of drug policies will be doomed to repeat them. A final quibble is with the title itself, since regulation implies a public health model, with some legal access to drugs, and does not encompass prohibition, the dominant criminal justice approach to illicit drugs in Canada for over one hundred years.
