Drugs

Toby Seddon

Chapter 2 in Research Handbook on Drugs and Society, 2026, pp 12-21 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: In this chapter, the foundational concept of a ‘drug’ is explored, as one of the central building blocks for the study of drugs and society. It begins by presenting a short critical history of how the modern meaning of the concept – as an intoxicating substance regulated by criminal law – came to be assembled in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Further refining of the parameters of the drug concept is then developed through a conceptual mapping of the overlapping and inter-related family of categories of consumable substances (food, medicine, poison, drug etc) and then a genealogical analysis of how Western-driven prohibition effaced a rich and diverse language in nineteenth-century India (hemp, ganja, charas etc). Critically interrogating the drug concept is shown to be deeply political in the way it surfaces otherwise-hidden ideological issues.

Keywords: Drugs; Conceptual history; Genealogy; Colonialism; Epistemicide (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781802209136
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781802209143.00008 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:21367_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().