3 Review(s)

This study provides a picture of US involvement with international drug control, from its inception to the late 1990s. It charts the American quest to internationalize the doctrine of drug prohibition and reveals the origins, motivation and methodologies present within the US overseas fight against the production, manufacture, trafficking and use of certain psychoactive substances. Drawing on extensive historical materials, David R. Bewley-Taylor uses the international career of America's first Drugs Czar, Harry J. Anslinger, to explore how the US successfully exploited hegemonic superiority in 1956 to influence the philosophy of the multilateral drug control sustem operated by the United Nations. A re-interpretation of Anslinger's role within the US bureaucracy also illuminates the dynamics underlying Washington's frequent subordination of international anti-drug measures to security concerns during the Cold War.