Welcome to Drug History Canada. I have created this blog as a forum (or maybe a monologue) about the history of drugs in Canada.
In contrast to my other blogs, which relate little to my academic work, this blog will be focused upon my current, upcoming and at times previous research in the history of drugs in Canada. This topic is broad, the limits being mostly set by how you define the word “drug.” Does that include alcohol? Medical drugs or only “illicit” ones? Addictive or non-addictive. Etc., etc., etc.
I guess I come about this topic honestly: I have researched both the history of drug control and prohibition in Canada, and liquor regulation in Ontario. I am also currently the editor in chief of the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal. So I try to take a fairly pluralistic approach to the topic.
Having just completed a book on the regulation of public drinking in post-prohibition Ontario, (which you can find listed here and which will come out in paperback–and thus will be cheaper–in six months, and which will also be available for purchase on Google books) I am now beginning to revisit research I did years ago that looked at the decades leading up to the creation of prohibitory drug laws in Canada at the beginning of the twentieth century. I hope to turn that research into a book over the next year or so.
That’s enough from me. With this blog, I begin a new meandering journey. Hopefully these thoughts will be able to compete with my musings on brewing and cheese making…
(c) Dan Malleck, 2012
Drug History Canada 