Substance abuse in America : a documentary and reference guide / James A. Swartz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Swartz, James, 1955- author.

Contributor:

Gale Virtual Reference Library.

Series:

Documentary and reference guides

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Substance abuse--United States.

Substance abuse.

United States.

Drug abuse--United States.

Drug abuse.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxviii, 333 pages) : illustrations.

polychrome.

Place of Publication:

Santa Barbara, Calif. : Greenwood, [2012]

[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], [2012]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

An innovative book for both specialist and general readers, this book is highly suitable for classroom use. The book is much broader than its title suggests. Its subject is the social and policy history of what we think of in the US as "illegal drugs," though they may sometimes be legal. The author is a professor of social work (U. of Illinois) and a clinical psychologist with research background in case management of drug abusers in the criminal justice system. However, this is a history book. Swartz has usefully organized ideas about drug use into historical sections: early 20th century, 1930s-50s, 1960s-mid 90s, mid-1990s to the present. Each section is a set of primary sources: important or representative documents from that era about "drugs," drug abuse, and drug abusers. Each document has a heading summarizing its title, author, date, location, and historical significance, and is followed by a short author's analysis to put it into historical, cultural, and thematic context. The documents let readers compare types of rhetoric (popular articles, political speeches, policy statements, and legislation) and recurring themes in different styles and eras. As a result, readers and teachers can compare a 1914 New York Times story on cocaine-crazed Southern Negroes with a 2002 Guardian (UK) "Hillbilly Hell" story on Oxycontin-abusing American poor whites, a 1967 Look Magazine story on hippies, a 1990 policy report on young black Americans and the criminal justice system, or any other document in the book. California's medical-marajuana bill shares space with both patent-medicine advertising and the repeal of the Volstead Act. The author has found an approach to an important and divisive subject that is vivid, honest, informative, and politically neutral. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Contents:

The early 20th century: patent medicines, the rise and fall of prohibition, the narcotics farms

The 1930s through the 1950s : Harry J. Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of narcotics, Reefer madness, the Kefauver committee, the beat generation

The 1960s through the mid-1990s : amphetamines and barbiturates, the counterculture, lsd, and Vietnam, the heroin epidemics, cocaine re-emerges, crack-cocaine, HIV/AIDS, harm reduction, sentencing disparities

The mid-1990s to 2011 : medical marijuana, black tar heroin, oxycontin

Methamphetamine, the Mexican drug war, the war on drugs continues.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 331-324) and index.

Electronic reproduction. Farmington Hills, Mich. Available via World Wide Web.

Print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Substance abuse in America.

ISBN:

9780313353772

0313353778

9781283549271

1283549271

Publisher Number:

99990103307

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.