Dark Paradise

Front Cover
Harvard University Press, 2009 M06 30 - 346 pages
In a newly enlarged edition of this eye-opening book, David T. Courtwright offers an original interpretation of a puzzling chapter in American social and medical history: the dramatic change in the pattern of opiate addiction--from respectable upper-class matrons to lower-class urban males, often with a criminal record. Challenging the prevailing view that the shift resulted from harsh new laws, Courtwright shows that the crucial role was played by the medical rather than the legal profession. Dark Paradise tells the story not only from the standpoint of legal and medical sources, but also from the perspective of addicts themselves. With the addition of a new introduction and two new chapters on heroin addiction and treatment since 1940, Courtwright has updated this compelling work of social history for the present crisis of the Drug War.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
1 The Extent of Opiate Addiction
9
2 Addiction to Opium and Morphine
35
3 Addiction to Smoking Opium
61
4 Addiction to Heroin
85
5 The Transformation of the Opiate Addict
110
6 Heroin in Postwar America
145
7 The Drug Wars
161
Addiction Rate and City Size
186
Abbreviations
187
Notes
189
Bibliography
271
Index
317
Copyright

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Page vi - twould win me That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware ! Beware ! His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Page 305 - A Treatise on Pharmacy : designed as a Text-book for the Student, and as a Guide for the Physician and Pharmaceutist. With many Formulae and Prescriptions.
Page 294 - A Critical Study of the Origins and Early Development of Hypodermic Medication," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 2 (1947): 201-249; and John B.
Page 301 - Patent and Proprietary Medicines as the Cause of the Alcohol and Opium Habit or Other Forms of Narcomania, with •Some Suggestions as to How the Evil may be Remedied.

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