March 2013 – Points: short & insightful writing about the long & complex history of drugs & alcohol

North Korea’s Drug Dealing Diplomats

March 30, 2013 by efcannon

Editor’s note: Contributing editor Saeyoung Park files this post from on the road, following her attendance at the Association for Asian Studies annual conference in San Diego.

Earlier this month, a Washington Post blog post referred to a Chosun Ilbo article ( Kr.) which stated that North Korean diplomats stationed at an unnamed Eastern European country had each been given 20 kg of drugs to sell. Supposedly, the diplomats were ordered to remit the value of their drugs, about 300,000 USD, by early April or before the “Day of the Sun” (the April 15 DPRK holiday celebrating Kim Il Sung’s birthday). The Chosun Ilbo

— one of the major right-leaning newspapers in South Korea — contextualized the diplomatic drug dealing within a broader history of DPRK state-sponsored trafficking, referring to the existence of a Work Unit 39 that has purportedly been responsible for the export of “some of the best quality meth worldwide” to Chinese markets. The Washington Post blog post has drawn enough attention in the current tense phase of peninsula relations, that the official DPRK news agency, the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA), has directly attacked the Washington Post and the blog post’s author, Max Fisher (see Fisher’s response).

At this point, little in the news would probably surprise readers about North Korea. And that, actually, is a problem.

Setting the Record Straight, Part 5: A Disease They Didn’t Have

March 27, 2013 by efcannon

Editor’s note: Today marks the final installment of guest blogger Marcus Chatfield’s eye-opening exploration of the role that peer-reviewed research played in facilitating the survival of Straight Inc. into the 1990s, as well as its ongoing legacy in coercive youth drug abuse treatment.

In the 1989 Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment article “Outcome of a Unique Youth Drug Abuse Program: A Follow-up Study of Clients of Straight Inc.”, Alfred S. Friedman, Richard Schwartz, and Arlene Utada state that 99 percent of Straight’s clients were white and that 30 percent of clients attended church regularly prior to intake. It is relevant to consider the type of teens that were recruited for “treatment,” as well as how they were recruited for treatment and why their parents placed them in Straight. Notably, several authors have reported that many clients at Straight were treated for a disease they didn’t have. This was due in large part to Straight’s assertion that even the experimental use of alcohol or marijuana was the symptom of a disease. And because this disease was the cause of even initial drug use, treatment was required whether teens had experimented with drugs or not. Many clients in Straight were “dry druggies” who had never used an illegal substance but were displaying “druggie behavior.”

ADHS Daily Register: Call for Editors

March 26, 2013 by Joe Spillane

The Alcohol and Drugs History Society is looking for one or more new Managing Editors of the ADHS Daily Register. The Daily Register is a long-time online publication of the ADHS, dedicated to providing regular news, publication updates, and announcements of interest to both the members of the organization and the wider, global audience interested …

The Points Interview — Edgar-André Montigny

March 22, 2013 by ronroizen9

Editor’s Note: Edgar-André Montigny’s edited volume, The Real Dope: Social, Legal, and Historial Perspectives on the Regulation of Drugs in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2011) takes the spotlight today.

1. Describe your book in terms your bartender would understand.

The Real Dope is a collection of scholarly articles exploring how the government and society in general have dealt with various drugs, from alcohol and tobacco to ecstasy and LSD. The articles introduce us to 19th-century moral reformers, 1920s flappers, downtown Vancouver heroin addicts, psychology professors, hippies, glue-sniffing high school students, ravers, post-war government officials and senators, all interacting in some way with intoxicating substances through using, studying or regulating them.

2. What do you think a bunch of alcohol historians might find particularly interesting about this book?

Setting the Record Straight, Part 4

March 20, 2013 by efcannon

Editor’s note: Marcus Chatfield continues his series on Straight, Inc., the coercive treatment program for children and teens suspected of drug use that flourished with White House and NIDA support in the 1980s. In today’s entry, Marcus breaks down the flaws in the peer-reviewed research that helped cement this official legitimacy.

In “Outcome of a Unique Youth Drug Abuse Program: A Follow-up Study of Clients of Straight Inc.” (1989), Alfred S. Friedman, Richard Schwartz, and Arlene Utada claim that their report will include: “(1) the description of the study sample, (2) the outcome of the improvement that occurred between intake and follow-up, (3) the comparison of the outcome between graduates and ‘dropouts,’ and (4) the relationship of the amount of time in treatment to treatment outcome.”

"This report is in fulfillment of NIDA Professional Services Contract #64986." — In their sights.

However, in each of these areas the study is flawed: (a) their description of the study sample reveals major problems, such as selective sampling; (b) the intake-to-follow-up comparisons show limited correlation and also, the authors state that they are meant to measure outcome of improvement rather than actual outcome; (c) they completely fail to discuss their promised comparisons between graduates and dropouts (they also claim to discuss a comparison between “respondents” and “nonrespondents” and then omit this comparison as well); and (d) perhaps most importantly, but left unexplained, they found that “time in treatment” had no effect on drug use reductions.

Historical Documents of Temperance, Post-Pat’s Day Guilt and Remorse Edition

March 18, 2013March 17, 2013 by efcannon

Spending a quiet St. Patrick’s Day with my parents and, as many of us do at a certain age, shamelessly rifling their old personal documents, I came across this item of interest.

It is my father’s Pioneer Pledge, his oath at the age of sixteen to “abstain for life,” albeit with some language about “reparations” that may or may not apply to future “sins of intemperance” as well as past ones. He took it in 1960, near the historical peak of membership in the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart, the movement founded in 1898 by the Jesuit priest James A. Cullen.

The Little Saloon on the Prairie

March 14, 2013 by michelle1mcc

With interests in heritage tourism and addiction history, I am always looking for intersections between the two. I found one unexpectedly last summer in Alaska, visiting several brothel museums that celebrated the madams’ business acumen and bootlegging success. I learned recently that Kentucky has a Bourbon Trail with the tagline “Where the Spirit Leads You,” while the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States has its own American Whiskey Trail, starring George Washington’s own distillery at Mount Vernon. Needless to say, these sites demonstrate the power of history to make political and economic arguments in the present. A fuller discussion of them will have to await my next road trip.

Heirloom booze. — Ye olde employee of Beam Inc. (NYSE: BEAM).

Meanwhile, not all museums or cultural attractions want to highlight the role of alcohol, especially when they are cultivating a wholesome image befitting their connection with classics of children’s literature. As an example, heritage tourism is booming at the sites associated with the “Little House” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, where visitors confront a complex mix of history, original and replica buildings, and landscapes, all viewed through the lens of well-loved texts.

Setting the Record Straight, Part 3

March 13, 2013 by efcannon

Editor’s note: Today Marcus Chatfield continues his series on Straight Inc., the involuntary treatment program for adolescents suspected of drug use that operated in several states between the 1970s and 1990s. Parts 1 and 2 of the series can be found here and here.

In Help at Any Cost (2006), Maia Szalavitz reveals some of the troubling history of coercive programs. The sub-title of her book is, “How the Troubled Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids,” and this is one of the hardest things for a survivor to describe – the deceit that protects abusive programs. Dr. Charles Huffine writes, “I cannot tell you how many youth I’ve been in contact with that do not tell their family about the painful aspects of their experiences for fear of making their family feel bad — though I can say they number in the majority. All too frequently, simply, they did not know they were abused, or worse, that the abuse was justified and necessary for them to ‘get better.’”

Straight-inspired TV movie Not My Kid (1985). Spoiler alert: they got their kid back. — Straight-inspired TV movie *Not My Kid* (1985). Spoiler alert: they got their kid back.

Tough-love programs often ritualize emotional testimonies and require testimony about conversion experiences as a prerequisite for release from treatment. Because there is no scientific evidence to validate the safety and efficacy of coercive methods, these anecdotes are the “hook” that this multi-billion dollar industry is built upon. Many victims of thought-reform treatments, like victims of domestic violence, will defend their captors as a self-protective survival response. Similar to abusive dynamics in families, when people are beaten down long enough they may believe it’s normal, deserved, and even good for them. As one former staff member of the program said to me recently, “at the time I graduated I was so duped into believing that I’d been helped, I couldn’t even begin to see the damage caused to me.”