The Other Drug War: A History of Prescription Drug Abuse in America

 描述(由申请人提供)： 提议的项目是研究、撰写和出版一本书长的关于美国处方药滥用的学术历史。 根据疾病控制中心的数据，处方药滥用已经成为一种“流行病”，仅处方阿片类药物造成的死亡人数现在就超过了海洛因和可卡因死亡人数的总和。大多数观察人士认为，这是一种起源于20世纪90年代的近期现象。这种假定的新颖性在这种流行病最具文化说服力的叙述中发挥了关键作用：这种上瘾已经逃离了非白人城市穷人的传统家园，通过药柜在体面的白人郊区肆无忌惮，产生了(正如一篇典型的新闻报道所说的)“新一代瘾君子”。 然而，这场疫情和人们对它的震惊反应都有很长的历史。就像对历史文献的粗略回顾所表明的那样，合法生产的镇静剂、兴奋剂和麻醉品的问题使用(或为了方便，尽管时代不合时宜，“处方药滥用”)经常使非法药物滥用相形见绌一个多世纪，毒品当局和大众媒体在20世纪的大部分时间里一直在发现和重新发现这种流行病。 PI是一位研究药物、成瘾、医药和美国文化的经验丰富的历史学家，他建议通过对食品和药物管理局、联邦麻醉局、多个州医疗和药房委员会、成瘾研究人员和制药公司的记录进行档案研究，以及20世纪出版的广泛研究，包括(但不限于)流行、医疗和贸易媒体；国会听证会和调查；以及监管机构的报告，来记录这一漫长的传奇故事。 通过将处方药滥用重新描述为一种长期存在的现象，而不是最近的一种反常现象，拟议中的项目将提出关于美国人理解和管理毒品问题的方式的重要问题。它还提供了一个丰富的历史实验室，记录过去的经验和政策，为学者、卫生保健专业人员、政策制定者和执法机构提供信息，帮助他们今天解决这些问题。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed project is to research, write, and publish a book-length scholarly history of prescription drug abuse in America. According to the Centers for Disease Control, prescription drug abuse has become an "epidemic," with deaths from prescription opioids alone now outpacing deaths from heroin and cocaine combined. Most observers identify this as a recent phenomenon originating in the 1990s. This presumed novelty plays a key role in the epidemic's most culturally compelling narrative: that addiction has escaped its traditional home among the nonwhite urban poor, and has, via the medicine cabinet, run amok in respectable white suburbia, producing (as one typical news report put it) a "new breed of addict." Both the epidemic and the shocked reactions to it, however, have a long history. As even a cursory review of historical literature demonstrates, problematic use of legally manufactured sedatives, stimulants, and narcotics (or for convenience despite the anachronism, "prescription drug abuse") has regularly dwarfed illicit drug abuse for over a century, and drug authorities and popular media have been discovering and re-discovering this epidemic for the better part of the 20th century. The PI, an experienced historian of pharmaceuticals, addiction, medicine, and American culture, proposes to document this long saga through archival research in the records of the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, multiple state medical and pharmacy boards, addiction researchers, and pharmaceutical companies, as well as extensive research in the 20th century published record including (but not limited to) popular, medical, and trade media; Congressional hearings and investigations; and reports from regulatory agencies. By recasting prescription drug abuse as a longstanding phenomenon rather than a recent aberration, the proposed project will raise important questions about the way Americans understand and manage drug problems. It also provides a rich historical laboratory of past experiences and policies to inform scholars, health care professionals, policymakers, and law enforcement agencies as they grapple with those problems today.