Abstract
At the 2017 Alcohol and Drug History Society Bi-Annual Conference in Utretcht, medical historian Virginia Berridge, the keynote speaker for this event, called for her colleagues to move beyond studying drugs and pharmaceuticals in isolation from one another. Lucas Richert’s new book is an answer to this call. Strange Trips: Science, Culture, and the Regulation of Drugs unites the histories of a wide variety of both legalized and illicit pharmaceuticals in his historical examination of how North American debates about drugs reflect much longer histories of economic and political influences on medical practice. This book gives important context to present-day debates on a variety of issues connected to drug regulation, consumption and discourses in late twentieth and early twenty-first century Canada and the USA.
Strange Trips is thematically organized into three parts. The first, ‘End-of-Life Medicine’, examines the debates surrounding the use of heroin for pain management and palliative care in the USA and Canada, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s. In both countries – and despite this drug’s differing histories in these locations – heroin was the flashpoint for cultural, medical and political contests regarding its migration ‘from its position of illegitimacy’ to ‘an accepted tool in the doctor’s bag’ (p. 22). The narrative then shifts towards Laetrile, a compound popularly promoted as a cancer cure during the 1970s. Richert argues that this drug ‘crystallized debates about consumer choice, government intrusion, and the availability of drugs’ (p. 59) as it faced increasing suspicion and regulation from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The second section of this book is titled ‘Hippy Medicine’, and it describes the histories of lysergic acid diethylamide’s (LSD) ‘psychedelic renaissance’ and cannabis (marijuana) legalization in Canada in the 2000s. Historically, these two drugs have been associated with 1960s counterculture movements, but recent years have seen a resurgence in medical research and increased interest in their recreational use. As a result of their contentious histories, LSD and marijuana’s ‘outsider’ status caused them to be viewed with both scorn and admiration.
The last section of this book, ‘Demonized Pharmaceuticals’, is its most ambitious. Here, Richert explores highly publicized debates surrounding three types of drugs: pharmaceuticals imported from the USA, diet pills (particularly those containing phenylpropanolamine [PPA]), and ketamine.
During the ‘maple peril’ of the early 2000s, US lawmakers, activist groups and pharmaceutical companies associated legitimate Canadian pharmaceuticals with danger and terrorism in an attempt to scare American buyers away from purchasing lower-cost Canadian products. Likewise, between 1970 and 2001, PPA and various other diet pills were at the centre of long, contentious debates between institutions and individuals over this drug’s legitimacy, given its potential health risks and popularity as weight-loss products. Strange Trips concludes with a brief discussion of ketamine, the party drug-turned-potential depression cure between the 1960s and the present day. This final chapter argues that ketamine is an important example of how scientists, regulatory bodies and members of the public have historically worked to distinguish licit drugs from illicit ones in twentieth-century North America.
Richert does not make direct comparisons between US and Canadian drug histories in this text. His goal was rather to flag parallels and contrasts between how business owners, legislators, medical experts and private citizens conceptualized both licit and illicit drugs in these two countries. A more direct comparison may be an important direction for future research, given the USA’s and Canada’s differing healthcare landscapes and political cultures. Nonetheless, Richert’s analytical framework in this text allows him to compare drug histories in meaningful ways, highlighting the similarities and differences in their seemingly disparate pasts, despite temporal and geographical boundaries.
Strange Trips is clearly written and thoroughly researched, and many chapters include allusions to modern-day popular culture. These factors make it an excellent resource for readers at all scholarly levels, particularly undergraduates. Clinicians and historians alike will be interested in how Richert examines salient issues in our modern medical and political landscape through the engaging lens of drug history. The rise of medical tourism, the lingering tension between public health concerns and private business interests in the creation of drug regulation policy, and the modern obesity epidemic, for example, all have their roots in histories explored in this text. It is only through understanding this complicated historical landscape that we can make effective changes in the present day; indeed, according to Richert, these histories demonstrate that ‘it is time to seek a firmer grasp of the complex boundaries among legal and recreational drugs, the back-and-forth struggles over acceptance and illegality in the realms of science, as well as the debates in the media and political sphere’ (p. 6). This book, then, offers its readers not only an engaging examination of interconnected drug histories, but an insightful window into several pertinent questions about drugs and their uses today.
Strange Trips is an ambitious work that breathes new life into the often isolationist historiography of North American drug regulation, consumption and resistance. By weaving together the histories of various drugs into a singular, strongly crafted narrative, Richert encourages his readers to reconsider their understanding of these drugs, as well as the business practices, social discourses and scientific research surrounding them.