A history of drugs : drugs and freedom in the liberal age

195 Pages·2010·1.396 MB·English

by  Toby Seddon

A History of Drugs
Why are some psychoactive substances regarded as ‘dangerous drugs’, to be
controlled by the criminal law within a global prohibition regime, whilst
others – from alcohol and tobacco, through to those we call ‘medicines’ – are
seen and regulated very differently? A History of Drugs traces a genealogy of
the construction and governance of the ‘drug problem’ over the past 200
years, calling into question some of the most fundamental ideas in this field
from ‘addiction’ to the very concept of ‘drugs’. At the heart of the book is
the claim that it was with the emergence in the late eighteenth century of
modern liberal capitalism, with its distinctive emphasis on freedom, that our
concerns about the consumption of some of these substances began to
grow. And, indeed, notions of freedom, free will and responsibility remain
central to the drug question today. Pursuing an innovative inter-disciplinary
approach, A History of Drugs provides an informed and insightful account of
theoriginsofcontemporarydrugpolicy.Itwillbeessentialreadingforstudents
and academics working in law, criminology, sociology, social policy, history
and political science.
Toby Seddon is Senior Research Fellow in the School of Law at the
where he is also Director of the Regulation, Security
and Justice Research Centre. He is the author of Punishment and Madness
(Routledge-Cavendish).

A History of Drugs
Drugs and freedom in the liberal age
Toby Seddon
Firstpublished2010
byRoutledge
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©2010TobySeddon
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Seddon,Toby
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Includesbibliographicreferences
ISBN-13:978-0-415-48027-7(hdk)
ISBN-10:0-415-48027-2( hdk)
ISBN-13:978-0-203-88083-8(ebk)
ISBN-10:0-203-88083-8(ebk)
1.Drugabuse–Governmentpolicy–GreatBritain.2.Drugabuse–Lawand
Legislation–GreatBritain.I.Title
HV5840.G7S432010
362.290941–dc22
2009037169
ISBN 0-203-88083-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0-415-48027-2 (hbk)
ISBN10:0-203-88083-8(ebk)
ISBN13:978-0-415-48027-7(hbk)
ISBN13:978-0-203-88083-8(ebk)
For Poppy, Sam and Molly-Eva, as always, and for my dad in his
continuing recovery

Contents
List of illustrations viii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction: drugs, freedom and liberalism 1
2 A conceptual map: freedom, the ‘will’ and addiction 16
3 Opium, regulation and classical liberalism: the
Pharmacy Act 1868 35
4 Drugs, prohibition and welfarism: the Dangerous
Drugs Act 1920 56
5 Drugs, risk and neo-liberalism: the Drugs Act 2005 78
6 Drugs as a regulation and governance problem 100
7 Conclusion: drugs and freedom in the liberal age 122
Appendix 1: Pharm acy Act 1868 (selected extracts) 137
Appendix 2: Dangerous Drugs Act 1920 (selected extracts) 141
Appendix 3: Drugs Act 2005 (selected extracts) 146
References 159
Index 175
Illustrations
Figure
6.1 Generic example of a regulatory pyramid 108
Tables
2.1 ‘Master’ changes of modern freedom in liberal government 22
2.2 ‘Master’ changes in conceptions of the ‘will’ in liberal
government 25
2.3 ‘Master’ changes in conceptions of ‘addiction’ in liberal
government 30
6.1 Selected psychoactive substances: vices and virtues 106
6.2 General design principles for flipping markets in vice to
markets in virtue 107
6.3 Selected administrative measures to tackle drug problems 119
Box
3.1 Poisons Schedule from Pharmacy Act of 1868 37
Acknowledgements
The first spark of the idea for this book came to me in the summer of 2005,
as I was sitting in the university library in Leeds trying to finish the manu-
script for my first book, Punishment and Madness. Reading an essay by Roy
Porter on the contribution of Foucault to the study of madness, I was struck
by his argument that Histoire de la Folie could best be understood as a history
of the relationship between madness and reason. In the margins of my notes,
I scribbled an idea: ‘Could we say the same thing about addiction and free-
dom?’ A year later, I got round to writing a short article exploring this
which was eventually published as ‘Drugs and freedom’ in the journal
Addiction Research & Theory. Unusually, I received a small number of emails
after this article was published from people who found it intriguing and
interesting but too brief a treatment of the matter. This persuaded me that
I was on to something important and so I decided to write this book.
I owe thanks to several people who have helped along the way. Virginia
Berridge literally made the book possible through her body of primary his-
torical research in this field. Without her work, this book simply would not
exist. Whilst I remain (obviously) in thrall to Foucault and especially some
of his more constructive interpreters, notably Nikolas Rose and Pat O’Malley,
in this book I owe a particular intellectual debt to John Braithwaite. Over
the past three or fou r years, I have become increasingly interested in the
regulatory scholarship that John has pioneered, which has transformed my
thinking about drug policy and the ‘drug question’. I would also like to
thank Robin Room for advising me on the origins of the ‘problem drinker’
concept which helped greatly with a section in Chapter 5. An earlier version
of Chapter 6 was presented in Vienna at the 3rd Annual Conference of the
International Society for Study of Drug Policy. Thanks to participants
for helpful comments and special thanks to Alison Ritter, who acted as a
discussant at this session and also read a later written version.
Colleagues here at the Law School in Manchester have provided more
general support, especially those involved in the Regulation, Security and
Justice Research Centre that I helped to set up in 2008 and which is