Overview

Virtually every American alive has at some point consumed at least one, and very likely more, consciousness altering drug. Even those who actively eschew alcohol, tobacco, and coffee cannot easily avoid the full range of psychoactive substances pervading the culture. If the use of drugs is a constant in American history, the way they have been perceived has varied extensively. Just as the corrupting cigarettes of the early-20th century became the glamorous accessory of Hollywood stars and American GIs in the 1940s, only to fall into public disfavour later as an unhealthy and irresponsible habit, the social significance of every drug changes over time. This work shows how the identity of any psychoactive substance owes as much to its users, their patterns of use, and the cultural context in which the drug is taken, as it owes to the drug's documented physiological effects. Rather than seeing licit drugs and illicit drugs, recreational drugs and medicinal drugs, """"hard"""" drugs and """"soft"""" drugs as mutually exclusive categories, it challenges readers to consider the ways in which drugs have shifted historically from one category to another.

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9781558494251

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Greatly enriches our understanding of the history of drug use in America, with particular reference to the ways that changing social attitudes intersect with legal, medical, and political aspects of addiction. ... A welcome addition to the field.

This is a terrific book. Not only do the essays stand well on their own, but these pieces interact in very exciting and suggestive ways, giving the volume the feel of an integrated study. This is a major contribution.--John W. Crowley, author of The White Logic: Alcoholism and Gender in American Modernist Fiction Greatly enriches our understanding of the history of drug use in America, with particular reference to the ways that changing social attitudes intersect with legal, medical, and political aspects of addiction. . . . A welcome addition to the field.--Nicholas O. Warner, author of Spirits of America: Intoxication in Nineteenth-Century American Literature This delightful volume represents a careful admixture of skillfully edited, high-quality, and richly documented contributions to the analytic history of American experiences with alcohol and drugs. The scope of the collection is expansive. Unlike many conference-based volumes, this one succeeds in getting the authors to engage with each other in ways that build coherence and resonance. . . . Overall, this volume helps constitute a convivial and cross-generational conversation.--The Journal of the History of Medicine In an age of uncertainty for drug science and drug policy, that makes Altering American Consciousness a must read.--The Journal of American History This edited volume started life as a set of conference papers, delivered in 1997, on the subject of the history of drug use in American society. Out of this has grown a book that aims to sweep across the geography and the history of American to offer an informed view of changing attitudes and responses to drug use. . . . this is a readable and enjoyable text.--Criminal Justice Review In a very comprehensive manner it deals with the way that the society in America has dealt with a wide range of drugs, including alcohol. . . . Despite its American basis I would strongly recommend this book, particularly in relation to the concepts of societies attitudes to readers in the United Kingdom.--Alcohol and Alcoholism This book is a salutary complement to the flood of alarmist diatribes about the need for a revitalized war on drugs to save the nation from decay and to the well-meaning but tired pleas for greater personal freedom and expression. There are no shrill polemics here and no pretentious proposals for tougher laws or less stringent policies. What the reader will find are interesting snapshots of an erratic historical trajectory that shows how the social context matters more than biochemistry or pharmacology when it comes to shaping how people feel, not only about drugs and those who use them, but even about what it is that we call drugs and why. It is evident that alcohol and drugs have a long and colorful history in the United States, as well as around the world, with patterns of use, attitudes, and even scientific interpretations and pronouncements that have varied widely over time. In this book, 14 authors write about different aspects of such changes during the past 200 years. They demonstrate novel approaches, fresh interpretations, and realistic implications, with chapter subjects as diverse as professionalism among physicians, language and problem-definition, the status of Native Americans, sex differences, religion, LSD, and successive fads in the cessation of smoking. Each essay is enjoyable as well as informative, clear, well organized, and self-contained, with end notes and an ample bibliography. The introduction shows how the essays relate to one another and to the theme of the title.--New England Journal of Medicine

Author Information

Sarah W. Tracy is assistant professor of honors and the history of medicine at the University of Oklahoma and author of the forthcoming From Vice to Disease: Alcoholism in America, 1870-1920. Caroline Jean Acker is associate professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University and author of Creating the American Junkie: Addiction Research in the Classic Era of Narcotic Control.

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