Inventing Drugs: A Genealogy of a Regulatory Concept
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
| Author | Toby Seddon |
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2016.00760.x |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 43, NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 2016
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 393±415
Inventing Drugs: A Genealogy of a Regulatory Concept
Toby Seddon*
The trade in, and consumption of, illicit drugs is perhaps the arche-
typal `wicked problem' of our time ± complex, globalized, and
seemingly intractable ± and presents us with one of the very hardest
legal and policy challenges of the twenty-first century. The central
concept of a `drug' remains under-theorized and largely neglected by
critical socio-legal and criminological scholars. Drawing on a range
of primary archival material and secondary sources, this article sets
out a genealogy of the concept, assembled a little over a century ago
out of diverse lines of development. It is argued that the drug label is
an invented legal-regulatory construct closely bound up with the
global drug prohibit ion system. Many conte mporary features of th e
`war on drugs' bear traces of this genealogy, notably how drug law
enforcement often contributes to racial and social injustice. To move
beyond prohibition, radical law and policy reform may require us to
abandon the drug concept entirely.
We face a transnational threat of extraordinary proportions that amounts to
US$320 billion or some 0.5 per cent of global GDP. A threat that, every year,
kills around 250,000 people across the globe, while destroying the lives of
families and weakening community ties. A threat that jeopardises good
governance and the rule of law, and encourages crime and corruption. A threat
that feeds violence, fuels terrorism and undermines stability and security of
393
*School of Law, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13
9PL, England
toby.seddon@manchester.ac.uk
Thanks to Philip Burton, Philippa Carrington, and Nishat Hyder for assistance with some
of the archival research. Embryonic versions were given in Oxford and Sheffield and I
thank Ian Loader and Layla Skinns, respectively, for the invitations. Later versions were
presented at a `Global Humanities' workshop in Warwick and at a plenary panel at the
annual SLSA conference in Lancaster, at the invitations of Susannah Wilson and Suzanne
Ost. Virginia Berridge and Robin Room read and commented on a draft. The usual
disclaimer applies.
ß2016 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2016 Cardiff University Law School
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution
and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
states and entire regions. Its name is illicit drugs. Two words, that, when
combined, evoke fear, denial, and anger.
1
Had all that we poor fools bothered our heads about never been anything but a
phantom?
Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf (1929)
INTRODUCTION
`There are no drugs ``in nature'',' Jacques Derrida once declared,
2
`the
concept of drugs is not a scientific concept, but is rather instituted on the
basis of moral or political evaluation.' In other words, to label a substance a
`drug' is an evaluative rather than descriptive act,
3
a form of decree which is
usually `of a prohibitive nature'.
4
Prior to, or outside of, these evaluations,
there exist simply plants and chemicals ± whether naturally-occurring,
processed or entirely synthetic ± which have a variety of properties when
ingested by humans (poison, stimulant, sedative, nourishment, analgesic,
hallucinogen, and so on).
5
The different labels we attach to them are human
constructions, some of which are legal in character, some not. Contrary to
much public and political discourse on the matter, these labels are not settled
or universal but, rather, are historically and culturally contingent, that is,
they change over time and vary from place to place.
6
It is the historical contingency of the `drug' label that is the focus of this
article. The puzzle that is explored is highlighted by this observation from
the late historian, Roy Porter:
If you'd talked about the `drugs problem' two hundred years ago, no one
would have known what you meant. There was no notion then of `drugs', in
the sense of a small group of substances scientifically believed to be harmful
because addictive or personality destroying, the availability of which is
restricted by law. The term `drugs' as a shorthand for a bunch of assorted
narcotics is in fact a twentieth-century coinage: if you'd mentioned `drugs' to
anyone in George III's time or in the Victorian era, they'd have thought you
394
1 Y. Fedotov, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, March 2012.
2 J. Derrida, `The rhetoric of drugs: an interview' (1993) 5 differences: A J. of
Feminist Cultural Studies 2.
3 V. Ruggiero, `Drugs as a password and the law as a drug' in Drugs: Cultures,
Controls and Everyday Life, ed. N. South (1999).
4 Derrida, op. cit., n. 2, p. 2.
5 Zinberg established that the effects of ingesting a substance are not reducible solely
to biochemistry; rather, the psychological mindset of the consumer and the context
in which consumption takes place are also central (in shorthand, `drug, set, and
setting'). See N. Zinberg, Drug, Set, and Setting: The Basis for Controlled
Intoxicant Use (1984).
6 J. Goodman, P. Lovejoy, and A. Sherratt (eds.), Consuming Habits: Drugs in
History and Anthropology (1995).
ß2016 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2016 Cardiff University Law School
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