Abstract
For much of the twentieth century, a kind of dance has gone on between the forces that sought to regulate drugs, restricting their use to ‘medical and scientific’ purposes, and those who wished to consume them for entertainment and pleasure. This book maps out the movements of this dance in the classic years of the ‘British System’, a period that has hitherto been explored by historians only at its extremities, its beginning and its end. This chapter introduces the emergence and development of the white drug subculture in Britain. It contends that current views situating the advent of the subculture in the 1950s and 1960s are based on erroneous assumptions and readings. Instead, this subculture emerged during the interwar period. The 1930s, in particular, saw this subculture crystallising from upper-class bohemia and the nightclub world of London’s West End. The role played by the prescribing doctors of the ‘British System’ was a key component.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
J. Derrida (1989) ‘The Rhetoric of Drugs’ in Alexander, A. & Roberts, M. S. (eds.) High Culture: reflections on addiction and modernity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989) pp. 19–42.
- 2.
P. Bean, The Social Control of Drugs (London: Martin Robertson, 1974) p. 23. See also W. B. McAllister, Drug Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century: An international history (London and New York: Routledge, 2000) pp. 9–39.
- 3.
Prior to this, the Defence of the Realm Act regulation 40b (DORA 40b) was in place. Introduced in 1916 amidst fears of mass cocaine use amongst servicemen, it imposed similar restrictions on opium and cocaine. See V. Berridge, ‘War conditions and narcotics control: the passing of the Defence of the Realm Act regulation 40B’ Journal of Social Policy, 7, (1978) pp. 285–304.
- 4.
International Opium Convention of 1912 (The ‘Hague Convention’), Article 9. The American Journal of International Law, 6 (3) Supplement: Official Documents, (1912), pp. 177–192.
- 5.
Departmental Committee on Morphine and Heroin Addiction: Report (London: HMSO, 1926). Minutes of Appointment.
- 6.
Ibid. Conclusions and Recommendations. n.p.
- 7.
One UK critic termed the British System ‘(a) system of masterly inactivity in the face of a non-existent problem…’ D. Downes, Contrasts in Tolerance: Post War Penal Policy in the Netherlands and in England and Wales (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) p. 89.
- 8.
For a consideration of the British System, see V. Berridge, ‘The British System and its history: myth and reality’ in J. Strang and M. Gossop (eds) Heroin Addiction and the British System: Volume 1: Origins and Evolution (London and New York: Routledge, 2005). G. Pearson, ‘Drug-Control Policies in Britain’, Crime and Justice, 14 (1991) pp. 167–227.
- 9.
A. Mold Heroin: The Treatment of Addiction in Twentieth Century Britain (DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008).
- 10.
H. B. Spear, ‘The early years of Britain’s drug situation in practice: up to the 1960s’ in J. Strang and M. Gossop, (eds) Heroin Addiction and the British System: Volume 1: Origins and Evolution (London and New York: Routledge, 2005) p. 20.
- 11.
J. F. Galliher, D. P. Keys, M. Elsner, ‘Lindesmith v. Anslinger: An Early Government Victory in the Failed War on Drugs.’ The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 88, (1998) pp. 661–682.
- 12.
E. M. Schur, Narcotic Addiction in Britain and America: The Impact of Public Policy (London: Tavistock, 1963); and: A. S. Trebach The Heroin Solution Second Edition (Bloomington, Indiana: Unlimited Publishing, 2006).
- 13.
This information was gleaned from personal discussions with a former member of the Home Office staff.
- 14.
A. Bingham, Gender, Modernity and the Popular Press in Interwar Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) p. 3.
- 15.
F. Wyndham, Mrs Henderson (New York: Moyer Bell, 1985) p. 60. See page 73 of the present text for a fuller discussion.
- 16.
F. Mort, Capital Affairs: London and the Making of the Permissive Society (London: Yale University Press, 2010) pp. 10–11.
- 17.
D. J. Taylor, Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation: 1918–1940 (London: Chatto and Windus, 2007) p. 45. The bright young people are discussed in Chap. 3.
- 18.
M. Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality Volume 1 (London: Penguin Books, 1998).
- 19.
S. Plant, Writing on Drugs (London: Faber and Faber, 1999) p. 154.
- 20.
S. Zieger, Inventing the Addict: Drugs, Race and Sexuality in Nineteenth Century British and American Literature (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 2008) p. 159.
- 21.
C. Acker, Creating the American Junkie: Addiction Research in the Classic Era of Narcotic Control (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).
- 22.
M. Houlbrook, Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918–1957 (London: University of Chicago Press, 2005). Matt Houlbrook’s is an account of queer sexuality and does not deal with drugs. It should be noted, moreover, that Houlbrook rejects the use of the term ‘subculture’ in his work. He states: ‘In the lives they forged in London’s public, commercial, and residential spaces and in the ways in which they made sense of their desires and practices, men were never a distinct subculture somehow removed from the city, but an integral part of modern metropolitan life.’ p. 264. I would argue that most subcultures were not ‘somehow removed from the city’ but deeply integrated in it, as Chaps. 3 and 4 will show. Regardless of this, I shall use the terms interchangeably.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hallam, C. (2018). Introduction. In: White Drug Cultures and Regulation in London, 1916–1960. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94770-9_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94770-9_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94769-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94770-9
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)