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This book traces the history of the London 'white drugs' (opiate and cocaine) subculture from the First World War to the end of the classic 'British System' of drug prescribing in the 1960s. It also examines the regulatory forces that tried to suppress non-medical drug use, in both their medical and juridical forms. Drugs subcultures were previously thought to have begun as part of the post-war youth culture, but in fact they existed from at least the 1930s. In this book, two networks of drug users are explored, one emerging from the disaffected youth of the aristocracy, the other from the night-time economy of London's West End. Their drug use was caught up in a kind of dance whose steps represented cultural conflicts over identity and the modernism and Victorianism that coexisted in interwar Britain.
List of contents
1 Introduction.- 2 From injudicious prescribing to the script doctor: transgressive addiction treatment in the interwar years.- 3 The Chelsea network and white drug use in the 1930s.- 4 Heroin and the West End life, 1935-1938.- 5 The regulation of opiates under the classic British System, 1920-1945.- 6 The Royal College of Physicians Committee on Drug Addiction, 1938-1947.- 7 Morphine and morale: the British System and the Second World War.- 8 Postwar Britain: subcultural transitions and transmissions.- 9 Conclusions.
About the author
Christopher Hallam is a Research Associate at the Global Drug Policy Observatory, Swansea University, UK.
Summary
This book traces the history of the London ‘white drugs’ (opiate and cocaine) subculture from the First World War to the end of the classic ‘British System’ of drug prescribing in the 1960s. It also examines the regulatory forces that tried to suppress non-medical drug use, in both their medical and juridical forms. Drugs subcultures were previously thought to have begun as part of the post-war youth culture, but in fact they existed from at least the 1930s. In this book, two networks of drug users are explored, one emerging from the disaffected youth of the aristocracy, the other from the night-time economy of London’s West End. Their drug use was caught up in a kind of dance whose steps represented cultural conflicts over identity and the modernism and Victorianism that coexisted in interwar Britain.
