The Royal College of Physicians Committee on Drug Addiction, c.1938–c.1947

Hallam, Christopher

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-94770-9_6

Christopher Hallam²

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Abstract

This chapter examines the growing dissatisfaction amongst doctors and addiction experts in medicine, psychiatry, the prisons and government departments (Home Office, Ministry of Health). These discontents led to the setting up of the Royal College of Physicians Committee on Drug Addiction in 1938 and are reflected in its workings. The composition of the Committee was strongly influenced by eugenics, and its establishment was initiated by eugenicists in the medical and allied professions. Discussions were mainly structured around the perceived need to confine and segregate the addict population; the core issue was whether to stop at addicts or to lock up the entire population of misfits—the deviant nation. This was an old theme in addiction discourse. The Home Office was ambivalent about the proposals but finally came down against them. The anti-segregation wing of the Committee was led by Russell Brain, who went on to chair two influential committees on addiction in the twilight years of the classic British System.

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Notes

1.
H. Padwa, Social Poison: The Culture and Politics of Opiate Control in Britain and France, 1891–1926. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012) pp. 34, 35, 149.
2.
C. Smart, ‘Social Policy and Drug Addiction: A Critical Study of Policy Development’ British Journal of Addiction 79, (1984) pp. 31–39.
3.
Berridge, Opium and the People, p. 181.
4.
Berridge, Opium and the People, p. 165.
5.
V. Berridge, ‘Punishment or Treatment? Inebriety, Drink, and Drugs 1860–2004’, The Lancet Special Issue: Medicine, Crime and Punishment. Volume 364, (2004).
6.
Mold, (2008) Heroin, pp. 18–20.
7.
TNA MH 135/157, ‘Dangerous Drugs- Withdrawal of authority to prescribe’. Notes on the control and cure of drug addicts. n.d.
8.
Daily Express 13 March 1931, p. 7.
9.
‘Medicine and the Law: Prison or Hospital for Drug Addict?’ Lancet 232, 5999 (1938), pp. 454–455. The discussion was prompted by the Patricia Mallory court case; see Chap. 5.
10.
Eugenics Review, quoted in J. Gardiner, Wartime: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Headline, 2004) p. 214.
11.
P. Thane, (1995) ‘Population Politics in Post-War British Culture’ in R. Conekin, F. Mort, Frank & C. Waters, (eds.) Moments of Modernity: Reconstructing Britain 1945–1964 (London & New York: Rivers Oram Press, 1999) pp. 114–133.
12.
Overy, The Morbid Age, p. 105.
13.
Ibid., p. 107.
14.
Times, 5 May 1922, p. 18. Among the speakers was Humphrey Rolleston, then president of the RCP, and those present included Sir George Newman, principal medical officer at the Ministry of Health; C. H. Bond, president of the British Medico-Psychological Association; Lord Dawson of Penn; and several MPs.
15.
Gloucestershire Echo 25 November 1933, p. 1.
16.
Archive of the Royal College of Physicians. Official Proceedings of the Royal College of Physicians, 1935–1937; Volume LVI p. 393.
17.
Official Proceedings of the Royal College of Physicians, 1935–1937; Volume LVI p. 503.
18.
F. Honigsbaum, The division in British medicine: a history of the separation of general practice from hospital care, 1911–1968 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1979).
19.
B. Shephard, A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century 1914–1994 (London: Pimlico, 2000) pp. 163, 181.
20.
J. H. R. Ramsey, ‘A King, a Doctor and a Convenient Death’ British Medical Journal, 308, 6941 (1994) p. 1445.
21.
P. H. A. Willcox, (1970) Detective Physician: The Life and Work of Sir William Willcox 1870–1941 London: Heinemann.
22.
Thomas Bewley Madness to Mental Illness. A History of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Online archive 13, Edward Mapother (1881–1940) http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/usefulresources/publications/books/rcpp/9781904671350/extra9781904671350.aspx Accessed 15 November 2012.
23.
East, Sir (William) Norwood Oxford Dictionary of National Biography http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/32/101032958/.
24.
Brain, Walter Russell http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/32/101032035/.
25.
For this later infiltration by psychiatrists, see A. S. Trebach, The Heroin Solution Second Edition (Bloomington, Indiana: Unlimited Publishing, 2006) pp. 188, 221, passim. See also R. Lart, ‘Changing Images of the Addict and Addiction: British Medical Perception from Rolleston to Brain’ International Journal on Drug Policy 3, 3, (1992) pp. 118–125.
26.
MS5911. Royal College of Physicians: Committee on Drug Addiction. Minutes of Meeting, 18 January 1938. The terms of reference originally included alcoholism but were restricted to drug addiction following discussions in which it was judged that the latter would add an unnecessarily controversial dimension to the work.
27.
Royal College of Physicians- Minutes of Meeting, 18 January 1938.
28.
Ibid.
29.
‘Medical Notes in Parliament’, British Medical Journal 2, 3993 (1937) pp. 144–146.
30.
Quoted in L. A. Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880 (Basingstoke & London: Macmillan Press, 2000) pp. 144–5.
31.
D. Porter, ‘Eugenics and the Sterilisation Debate in Sweden and Britain before World War Two’ Scandinavian Journal of History 24, 2 (1999) pp. 145–162.
32.
Royal College of Physicians. Minutes of Meeting 18 January 1938.
33.
The 1938 Criminal Justice Bill is discussed in W. Norwood East, ‘The Problem of Alcohol and Drug Addiction in Relation to Crime’, British Journal of Inebriety 37,2 (1939) pp. 55–73.
34.
RCP Committee on Drug Addiction: Report on Discussion with Major E.H. Coles of the Home Office on 22nd February 1938.
35.
Ibid.
36.
Ibid.
37.
Ibid.
38.
H. B. Spear, Heroin Addiction, Care and Control, pp. 45–46.
39.
Royal College of Physicians—Telephone message from Lord Dawson of Penn 21.3.38.
40.
Ibid.
41.
Ibid.
42.
Ibid.
43.
Royal College of Physicians- Minutes of Meeting 9th June 1938.
44.
Ibid.
45.
Ibid.
46.
G. Pickering, ‘Brain, Walter Russell, first Baron Brain (1895–1966)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/32/101032035/Accessed 07.10 2013.
47.
Royal College of Physicians- Minutes of Meeting, 4 July 1938.
48.
RCP Committee 1938- Brain to Curran, 16 July 1938.
49.
RCP Committee 1938- Brain to Hart, 18 July 1938.
50.
Ibid.
51.
Ibid.
52.
RCP Committee 1938- Memorandum from Russell Brain.
53.
Ibid.
54.
Ibid.
55.
RCP Committee 1938- Chairman’s Memorandum 2, October 1938.
56.
Ibid.
57.
RCP Committee 1938- Minutes of Meeting, 9 November 1938.
58.
RCP Committee 1938- Report of discussion with Sir Oscar Dowson and Major Coles, 7 December 1938.
59.
Dowson, in Ibid.
60.
Coles, in Ibid.
61.
Crichton-Miller in Ibid.
62.
Coles in Ibid.
63.
Ibid.
64.
Ibid.
65.
Dowson in Ibid.
66.
Mapother in Ibid.
67.
Penn in Ibid.
68.
Ibid.
69.
Dowson in Ibid.
70.
Royal College of Physicians Committee 1938- Minutes of Meeting 7 December 1938.
71.
Royal College of Physicians Committee 1938- Summary of the position reached by the Committee on Drug Addiction.
72.
Ibid.
73.
TNA MH 135/157, Letter from Coles to Jameson, 14 March 1947.
74.
TNA MH 135/157, Extract from letter from Lord Chancellor to Home Secretary, 18 February 1947.
75.
Daily Mirror, 21 February 1947, p. 3.
76.
Ibid.
77.
TNA MH 135/157, ‘Notes on the Control and Cure of Drug Addicts’ (emphasis original).
78.
Ibid. (emphasis original).
79.
Mort, Capital Affairs, pp. 139–196, passim.
80.
TNA MH 135/157, ‘Meeting at Home Office, 1 April 1947’.
81.
TNA MH 135/157, ‘Notes on the Control and Cure of Drug Addicts’.
82.
Ibid.
83.
Ibid.
84.
TNA MH 135/157, ‘Meeting at Home Office, 1 April 1947’.

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Global Drug Policy Observatory, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
Christopher Hallam

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Hallam, C. (2018). The Royal College of Physicians Committee on Drug Addiction, c.1938–c.1947. In: White Drug Cultures and Regulation in London, 1916–1960. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94770-9_6

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94770-9_6
Published: 10 August 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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