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David T. Courtwright

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Preventing And Treating Narcotic Addiction — A Century Of Federal Drug Control, David Courtwright Nov 2015

Preventing And Treating Narcotic Addiction — A Century Of Federal Drug Control, David Courtwright

David T. Courtwright

Just over a century ago, in March 1915, the Harrison Narcotic Act took effect, requiring anyone who imported, produced, sold, or dispensed “narcotics” (at that time meaning coca- as well as opium-based drugs) to register, pay a nominal tax, and keep detailed records. With such records, officials could better enforce existing laws, such as those requiring sale by prescription only. They could also prosecute unregistered narcotics distributors such as saloonkeepers and street peddlers. The intent was to keep narcotic transactions within legitimate medical channels. For more than a decade, U.S. reformers and diplomats had been urging this course on other …

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The Cycles Of American Drug Policy, David T. Courtwright Jul 2015

The Cycles Of American Drug Policy, David T. Courtwright

David T. Courtwright

No abstract provided.

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The Hidden Epidemic: Opiate Addiction And Cocaine Use In The South, 1860-1920, David T. Courtwright Jun 2011

The Hidden Epidemic: Opiate Addiction And Cocaine Use In The South, 1860-1920, David T. Courtwright

David T. Courtwright

One of the many memorable characters in Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is an aged morphine addict, Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. Mrs. Dubose was a cantankerous widow who lived in Maycomb, a small, fictitious Alabama town. She had been addicted many years before by her physician, who gave her morphine to ease her pain. Informed that she had only a short while to live, she struggled to quit taking the drug, for she was determined "to leave this world beholden to nothing and nobody."There were tens of thousands of real-life Mrs. Duboses scattered throughout the postbellum South. With …

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