Drugs and Commerce: A History
In his book, Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern
World, David Courtwright, Professor of History at the University
of North Florida, tells "the story of psychoactive commerce." It
is Courtwright's theme that psychoactive drugs - both legal and
illegal - are commodities, like bread or cloth. They are
manufactured, packaged, distributed, marketed and used much like
any other commodity. They go in and out of public favor and new
and improved products are constantly being introduced.
Throughout human history, governments had generally treated
drugs like any other commodities. Prior to the Twentieth Century
opium, coca, and cannabis were all legally available in the form
of patent medicines that were widely and casualty used in both
the United States and Britain.
Courtwright divides his book into three sections, with some
overlap in content between sections. The first (titled "The
Confluence of Psychoactive Resources") describes the way drugs,
having originally been geographically confined, entered the
stream of global commerce. He compares the history of drugs to
the history of infectious diseases in that travel and transport
were the variables that influenced the spread of both. Alcohol,
tobacco and caffeine (the "big three") and opium, cannabis, and
coca ("the little three") all owed their success, he claims, to
the expansion of oceangoing commerce.
In the second section ("Drugs and Commerce") Courtwright takes
up the issue of drugs as medical and recreational products.
Section three ("Drugs and Power") discusses pressures and
developments that influenced governments to discard the
centuries old policy of a taxed, legal drug commerce in favor of
restriction and, in some cases, even prohibition. Not
surprisingly, he concludes that this happened "because it served
the interests of the wealthy and powerful," but he seems to
largely overlook the important role that racism played in
motivating prohibition.
Despite the evident failure of drug prohibition in the U.S. and
elsewhere, Courtwright endorses the continuation of supply-side
strategies. He insists that drugs will be abused wherever they
are available, and that efforts must therefore focus on reducing
supply. "The task now," he writes, "is to adjust the system."
But his optimism about making prohibition work seems
perfunctory. Throughout this book, Courtwright paints a gloomy
view of the drug problem that is likely to convince the reader
that no adjustments to the system will cut off the supply of
drugs. There is much to be gained from reading this book whether
you accept the author's policy conclusions or not.
Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World
by David T. Courtwright. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2001. http://commonplacebook.tripod.com/home/id20.html