Title Beware euphoria : the moral roots and racial myths of America's war on drugs / George Fisher

Published New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2024]

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Description 1 online resource (xix, 483 pages) : illustrations (some color), maps Contents Moral roots -- Sex, drunkenness, and the euphoria taboo -- The gin crisis -- Prohibition's rise, its fall, and the reign of social drinking -- Medical drug use versus recreational abuse -- Racial myths -- Race in the dens and miscegenation myths -- Crazed racial coke fiends -- Marijuana : assassin of youth -- Monogamy's demise? Summary "This book seeks the moral roots of America's antidrug regime and debunks claims early antidrug laws arose from racial animus. The moral roots trace to early Christian sexual strictures. Augustine condemned sex as indulging beastly appetites and suspending Godlike reason. The demands of procreation excuse indulgence but only as necessary. Puritans similarly condemned drunkenness as suspending reason and rendering persons bestial. Yet alcohol too was deemed necessary-as a foodstuff, sanitary beverage, and pain and cold remedy. One could use alcohol as necessary, never to intoxicate. Saint Thomas Aquinas defined temperance, drinking in moderation, as a moral safe harbor. These principles largely defined temperance debates in England and America, helping make and unmake England's eighteenth-century gin ban and American national prohibition. The regime that followed embraced alcohol's social necessity, permitting drinking in moderation. Other drugs can't easily strike this moral balance. Nineteenth-century Chinese opium dens served no apparent need and seemed to allow no subintoxicating use. Worse opium was thought a sexual stimulant, ruining respectable young women. Hence lawmakers banned opium dens and later cocaine and cannabis. Lawmakers distinguished necessary medical use from recreational abuse by criminalizing sales unless prescribed. Early antidrug laws rarely rose from racial strife. They sprang from the traditional moral censure of intoxication and perceived threats to respectable white women and youth. Today's drug war's racial dynamic differs greatly. As harsher penalties swell prisons with mostly nonwhite dealers, antidrug laws suffer attack as tools of racial oppression, helping tip public opinion toward legalizing marijuana"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on December 28, 2023) Subject Drugs of abuse -- Law and legislation -- United States -- History Narcotic laws -- United States -- History Drugs of abuse -- Law and legislation -- United States -- Criminal provisions Drugs -- Moral and ethical aspects -- United States Drug control -- United States Drug legalization -- United States Marijuana -- Therapeutic use -- United States Drug control Drug legalization Drugs of abuse -- Law and legislation Drugs of abuse -- Law and legislation -- Criminal provisions Marijuana -- Therapeutic use Narcotic laws Ethics & moral philosophy. Society. United States Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 2023030163 ISBN 9780197688519 0197688519 9780197688496 0197688497 0197688500 9780197688502

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