If you are trying to understand drug control, it is a presentist mistake to begin with opium. (presentism is the fallacy of judging or viewing the past through values and ideas of the present, rather than understanding them in their historical context.) Although many national and international agreements signed at the beginning of the 20th… Continue reading Drug control wasn’t initially about addiction, it was about death
Category: drug-history-resources
When medical and recreational drugs met
The underlying motivations for the 1908 legislation controlling opium importation and the legislation restricting sale of specific drugs in proprietary medicines came together in 1911. There are several precedents and I will not cover them here. Suffice it to say that the Opium Act was seen as inadequate for controlling opium, and the PPM was… Continue reading When medical and recreational drugs met
Canada’s (arguably) more important first drug law
In a previous post I provided the report from Deputy Minister of Labour, William Lyon Mackenzie King, which is often cited as instigating Canada's drug prohibition regime. Such a perspective is a distortion of the complex history of drugs in Canada. There are a few things to clarify. First, prior to 1908, most drugs that… Continue reading Canada’s (arguably) more important first drug law
What many call Canada’s first drug law
In 1907, there was a race riot in Vancouver's Chinatown. A bunch of white people, threatened by the arrival of a boat of Japanese people seeking work, rampaged through Chinatown (because racists discriminate, indiscriminately). The resulting property damage led to a commission of investigation by the Deputy Minister of Labour, a man named William Lyon… Continue reading What many call Canada’s first drug law
Drug history resources for an uncertain future
Since this blog is supposed to be about drug history, and since I've been woefully negligent in "blogging," I figured I'd take the opportunity to turn it, however, temporarily, into a teaching resource. In the next few weeks I'm going to post or link to useful resources on the history of drugs, both in Canada… Continue reading Drug history resources for an uncertain future
Drug History Canada 