Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace in the United States, 1884-1920

Studies in Industry and Society

by Joseph F. Spillane

Winner of the Addiction Book Award from the Society for the Study of Addiction In 1884 American physicians discovered the anesthetic value of cocaine, and over the next three decades this substance derived from the coca plant became so popular that it became, ironically, a public health problem. Demand exceeded supply; abuse proliferated. The black market produced a legendary underground of "cocaine fiends." As attempts at regulation failed, Congress in 1914 banned cocaine outright, and America launched its longstanding war against now-illegal drugs. Challenging "traditional thinking about both the 'rise' and 'fall' of drug problems" (which makes legal prohibition the pivotal point in the story), Spillane examines phenomena that have eluded earlier students of drug history. He explores the role of American business in fostering consumer interest in cocaine during the years when no law proscribed its use, the ways in which authorities and social agents tried nonetheless to establish informal controls on the substance, and the mixed results they achieved. In asking how this pain-allaying drug became recognizably dangerous, how reformers tried to ameliorate its social effects, and how an underground of cocaine abusers developed even before regulation of the drug industry as a whole, Spillane discovers contingency, complication, and mixed motives. Arguing that the underground drug culture had origins other than in federal prohibition can tell us as we face questions about drug policy today.

Genres: Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published December 10, 1999

Reviews

[Max Gavazzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an aspiring drug geographer, I thoroughly enjoyed this read. Spillane's in-depth examination of medical journals, newspapers, legal records, correspondence between professionals, and patent medicine advertisements provide valuable insights into how perceptions about cocaine changed from a panacea of the modern "brain worker" into a hedonistic vice of the lower class. He connects the moralistic, political, and only partially scientific nature of contemporary anti-drug laws with progressive era themes of moral panic entrenched in classism and racism. In an era where patent medicines and tonics containing a wide variety of intoxicating substances were publicly available, he situates cocaine use within broader commercial and regulatory transformations—rather than as an isolated phenomenon. I highly recommend this book for those interested in the political economy of intoxicants and drug prohibition.

[AskHistorians]

Covers cocaine's evolution from profitably-hyped medicine to police target, even before prohibition. No surprise, really, when you consider what chronic cocaine use does to a person.