Navigation

Opium Drug

Opium and the People: Opiate Use and Drug Control Policy in Nineteenth Century England Virginia Berridge

Free Association Book, 16.95 [pounds sterling], pp 370 ISBN 1 85343 413 2

Rating: ****

Reading the revised edition of this acclaimed work is like renewing an acquaintance with an old friend. The 1981 book, though mainly written by Virginia Berridge, also included a section by Griffith Edwards. The new edition is solely the work of Virginia Berridge, a distinguished historian, who has produced a truly wonderful text. This provides the definitive overview of the widespread use of opium in Britain during the 19th and early 20th centuries. My only criticism of this tour de force is its subtitle: this suggests that the book is confined to the use of opium in England, whereas Scotland also looms large in the text in relation to topics such as opium growing, clinical practice, and research.

At the start of the 19th century, opium was extensively used in Britain for reasons ranging from recreational use and the doping of babies to a host of medicinal purposes. These included analgesia and treating conditions such as the malarial "ague" rheumatism, neuralgia, diarrhoea, dysentery, delirium tremens, "excessive drinking," and the trials of childbirth. Opium was so widely used, especially in areas such as the then undrained and malarial Fens, that it was taken for granted for self medication and as a means of inducing euphoria or oblivion. Acceptance of opium was so general that horticultural societies gave awards for growing the poppy and medical practitioners were among the prize-winners. Neither the medical nor the pharmaceutical professions were sufficiently well organised or influential to administer or control opium use. Berridge outlines how, as these professions gained in power, they redefined opium use as a cause for concern and regular opium use as "a disease" This concern was accompanied by the growth of research into the ill effects associated with opium and the introduction of controls on its production and distribution.

The changed representation of opium in Britain provides the context for the evolution of current UK drug control policy. The contemporary "war on drugs" may be viewed as an extension of the debate on the status of opium in society. Drug policy reflects evidence on patterns of use and levels of harm. Even so, it is, above all else, a forum for opposing ideologies and the flexing of muscles by influential professions and interest groups.

This is a thoughtful, scholarly, and perceptive book. It should be essential reading not only for those with a historical interest in opium but for anyone interested in the ambivalent relation between humanity and psychoactive drugs.

Martin Plant, director; Alcohol and Health Research Centre, Edinburgh

COPYRIGHT 1999 British Medical Association
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group