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David Herzberg

University at Buffalo, State University of New York, History, Faculty Member

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I am a U.S. historian of drugs and addictive medicines, with a particular interest in the governance of pharmaceutical sedatives, stimulants, and narcotics in the 20th century's consumer culture. I am currently finishing a book tentatively titled The Other Drug War: Pharmaceuticals and Addiction in American History.

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University of California, San Diego

Christopher Hallam

Swansea University

Karl Lallerstedt

Maria Pelekanou

University of Cyprus

London School of Economics and Political Science

Kenzi Riboulet-Zemouli

Liviu Alexandrescu

Manchester Metropolitan University

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Papers by David Herzberg

Stuck in Traffic: Conflicting Regimes of Global Drug Regulation

Rethinking Therapeutic Culture, 2015

Chapter about "pills" in Travis and Aubrey edited volume "Rethinking Therapeutic Culture." Anti-p... more Chapter about "pills" in Travis and Aubrey edited volume "Rethinking Therapeutic Culture." Anti-pharma exposes are important but usually portray drug consumers as passive pawns or to blame for wanting to be fooled, especially problematic for psychopharmaceuticals since such consumers are disproportionately women. This chapter explores different ways that pill-takers exercise agency and practice politics.

Societal Biases, Institutional Discrimination, and Trends in Opioid Use in the USA

Entitled to Addiction? Pharmaceuticals, Race, and America's First Drug War

This article rethinks the formative decades of American drug wars through a social history of add... more This article rethinks the formative decades of American drug wars through a social history of addiction to pharmaceutical narcotics, sedatives, and stimulants in the first half of the twentieth century. It argues, first, that addiction to pharmaceutical drugs is no recent aberration; it has historically been more extensive than "street" or illicit drug use. Second, it argues that access to psychoactive pharmaceuticals was a problematic social entitlement constructed as distinctively medical amid the racialized reforms of the Progressive Era. The resulting drug control regime provided inadequate consumer protection for some (through the FDA), and overly punitive policing for others (through the FBN). Instead of seeing these as two separate stories-one a liberal triumph and the other a repressive scourge-both should be understood as part of the broader establishment of a consumer market for drugs segregated by class and race like other consumer markets developed in the era of Progressivism and Jim Crow.

PUBLIC HEALTH THEN AND NOW

Herzberg, Busted for Blockbusters (2012) no FNs

Blockbusters and controlled substances: Miltown, Quaalude, and consumer demand for drugs in postwar America

2 This boom-and-bust cycle, of course, will be nothing new to students of psychotropic medicines.... more 2 This boom-and-bust cycle, of course, will be nothing new to students of psychotropic medicines. This essay builds on Snelders, Kaplan, and Pieters' theory that booms and busts are sharper for ''modern'' rather than ''premodern'' medicines by investigating the role of commercialism and professional boundary maintenance in defining a ''modern'' medicine.

Recurring Epidemics of Pharmaceutical Drug Abuse in America: Time for an All-Drug Strategy

Recurring Epidemics of Pharmaceutical Drug Abuse in America: Time for an All-Drug Strategy

Entitled to Addiction?: Pharmaceuticals, Race, and America's First Drug War

Bulletin of the history of medicine, 2017

This article rethinks the formative decades of American drug wars through a social history of add... more This article rethinks the formative decades of American drug wars through a social history of addiction to pharmaceutical narcotics, sedatives, and stimulants in the first half of the twentieth century. It argues, first, that addiction to pharmaceutical drugs is no recent aberration; it has historically been more extensive than "street" or illicit drug use. Second, it argues that access to psychoactive pharmaceuticals was a problematic social entitlement constructed as distinctively medical amid the racialized reforms of the Progressive Era. The resulting drug control regime provided inadequate consumer protection for some (through the FDA), and overly punitive policing for others (through the FBN). Instead of seeing these as two separate stories-one a liberal triumph and the other a repressive scourge-both should be understood as part of the broader establishment of a consumer market for drugs segregated by class and race like other consumer markets developed in the era o...

The Story of PainPain: A Political History

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

Chapter 10. Pills (David Herzberg)

Rethinking Therapeutic Culture, 2000

On Depression: Drugs, Diagnosis, and Despair in the Modern World by Nassir Ghaemi

Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2015

David L. Herzberg - Healthcare Under the Microscope - Reviews in American History 35:1

Recurring Epidemics of Pharmaceutical Drug Abuse in America: Time for an All-Drug Strategy

American Journal of Public Health, 2016

Observers describe today&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;a... more Observers describe today&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;epidemic&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; of pharmaceutical drug abuse as a recent phenomenon, but we argue that it is only the most recent of three waves stretching back more than a century. During each wave, policies have followed a similar pattern: voluntary educational campaigns, followed by supply-side policing and-sometimes-public health responses that would today be understood as &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;harm reduction.&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; These experiences suggest that only broad-based application of all three approaches to users of all drugs (not just pharmaceutical drugs) can produce a reduction in drug-related harm rather than merely shifting it from one type of drug to another. This has rarely happened because policy has been shaped by the racially charged division of drug users into deserving and morally salvageable victims, or fearsome and morally repugnant criminals. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print January 21, 2016: e1-e3. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302982).

Ways of Regulating Drugs in the 19th and 20th Centuries eds. by Jean-Paul Gaudillière and Volker Hess

Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2014

Prescribing in an age of "wonder drugs

MD advisor : a journal for New Jersey medical community, 2011

Will wonder drugs never cease!": a prehistory of direct-to-consumer advertising

Pharmacy in history, 2009

Blockbusters and controlled substances: Miltown, Quaalude, and consumer demand for drugs in postwar America

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2011

In 1955 Carter Products launched its new tranquilizer Miltown with a huge marketing blitz; Miltow... more In 1955 Carter Products launched its new tranquilizer Miltown with a huge marketing blitz; Miltown soon became one of America's earliest ''blockbuster'' celebrity drugs. In 1981, federal agents shut down a network of ''stress clinics'' and arrested the owners, medical staff, and other personnel for illegally trafficking in the sedative Quaalude; Quaalude soon became a ''Schedule I Controlled Substance.'' Both of these stories are familiar, indeed archetypal, moments from America's postwar medical system. As the Miltown example reminds us, this fundamentally commercial system was built on the creation and courting of consumer demand for medical products and services, particularly drugs. As the Quaalude example shows, however, this system also incorporated tools for reining in excessive consumer demand. Together the two episodes affirm an enduring irony of the American medical system: the need for regulatory campaigns to tame lively markets for drugs that had become popular, in part, because of advertising campaigns. This article uses the Miltown and Quaalude sagas to explore the issue of consumer demand for prescription medicines, arguing that efforts to stoke or quash that demand have shaped (and linked) America's medical system and its drug control regimes.

Laura D. Hirshbein, American Melancholy: Constructions of Depression in the Twentieth Century

Social History of Medicine, 2011

In American Melancholy: Constructions of Depression in the Twentieth Century, Laura Hirshbein joi... more

Stuck in Traffic: Conflicting Regimes of Global Drug Regulation

Rethinking Therapeutic Culture, 2015

Chapter about "pills" in Travis and Aubrey edited volume "Rethinking Therapeutic Culture." Anti-p... more Chapter about "pills" in Travis and Aubrey edited volume "Rethinking Therapeutic Culture." Anti-pharma exposes are important but usually portray drug consumers as passive pawns or to blame for wanting to be fooled, especially problematic for psychopharmaceuticals since such consumers are disproportionately women. This chapter explores different ways that pill-takers exercise agency and practice politics.

Societal Biases, Institutional Discrimination, and Trends in Opioid Use in the USA

Entitled to Addiction? Pharmaceuticals, Race, and America's First Drug War

This article rethinks the formative decades of American drug wars through a social history of add... more This article rethinks the formative decades of American drug wars through a social history of addiction to pharmaceutical narcotics, sedatives, and stimulants in the first half of the twentieth century. It argues, first, that addiction to pharmaceutical drugs is no recent aberration; it has historically been more extensive than "street" or illicit drug use. Second, it argues that access to psychoactive pharmaceuticals was a problematic social entitlement constructed as distinctively medical amid the racialized reforms of the Progressive Era. The resulting drug control regime provided inadequate consumer protection for some (through the FDA), and overly punitive policing for others (through the FBN). Instead of seeing these as two separate stories-one a liberal triumph and the other a repressive scourge-both should be understood as part of the broader establishment of a consumer market for drugs segregated by class and race like other consumer markets developed in the era of Progressivism and Jim Crow.

PUBLIC HEALTH THEN AND NOW

Herzberg, Busted for Blockbusters (2012) no FNs

Blockbusters and controlled substances: Miltown, Quaalude, and consumer demand for drugs in postwar America

2 This boom-and-bust cycle, of course, will be nothing new to students of psychotropic medicines.... more 2 This boom-and-bust cycle, of course, will be nothing new to students of psychotropic medicines. This essay builds on Snelders, Kaplan, and Pieters' theory that booms and busts are sharper for ''modern'' rather than ''premodern'' medicines by investigating the role of commercialism and professional boundary maintenance in defining a ''modern'' medicine.

Recurring Epidemics of Pharmaceutical Drug Abuse in America: Time for an All-Drug Strategy

Recurring Epidemics of Pharmaceutical Drug Abuse in America: Time for an All-Drug Strategy

Entitled to Addiction?: Pharmaceuticals, Race, and America's First Drug War

Bulletin of the history of medicine, 2017

This article rethinks the formative decades of American drug wars through a social history of add... more This article rethinks the formative decades of American drug wars through a social history of addiction to pharmaceutical narcotics, sedatives, and stimulants in the first half of the twentieth century. It argues, first, that addiction to pharmaceutical drugs is no recent aberration; it has historically been more extensive than "street" or illicit drug use. Second, it argues that access to psychoactive pharmaceuticals was a problematic social entitlement constructed as distinctively medical amid the racialized reforms of the Progressive Era. The resulting drug control regime provided inadequate consumer protection for some (through the FDA), and overly punitive policing for others (through the FBN). Instead of seeing these as two separate stories-one a liberal triumph and the other a repressive scourge-both should be understood as part of the broader establishment of a consumer market for drugs segregated by class and race like other consumer markets developed in the era o...

The Story of PainPain: A Political History

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

Chapter 10. Pills (David Herzberg)

Rethinking Therapeutic Culture, 2000

On Depression: Drugs, Diagnosis, and Despair in the Modern World by Nassir Ghaemi

Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2015

David L. Herzberg - Healthcare Under the Microscope - Reviews in American History 35:1

Recurring Epidemics of Pharmaceutical Drug Abuse in America: Time for an All-Drug Strategy

American Journal of Public Health, 2016

Observers describe today&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;a... more Observers describe today&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;epidemic&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; of pharmaceutical drug abuse as a recent phenomenon, but we argue that it is only the most recent of three waves stretching back more than a century. During each wave, policies have followed a similar pattern: voluntary educational campaigns, followed by supply-side policing and-sometimes-public health responses that would today be understood as &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;harm reduction.&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; These experiences suggest that only broad-based application of all three approaches to users of all drugs (not just pharmaceutical drugs) can produce a reduction in drug-related harm rather than merely shifting it from one type of drug to another. This has rarely happened because policy has been shaped by the racially charged division of drug users into deserving and morally salvageable victims, or fearsome and morally repugnant criminals. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print January 21, 2016: e1-e3. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302982).

Ways of Regulating Drugs in the 19th and 20th Centuries eds. by Jean-Paul Gaudillière and Volker Hess

Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2014

Prescribing in an age of "wonder drugs

MD advisor : a journal for New Jersey medical community, 2011

Will wonder drugs never cease!": a prehistory of direct-to-consumer advertising

Pharmacy in history, 2009

Blockbusters and controlled substances: Miltown, Quaalude, and consumer demand for drugs in postwar America

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2011

In 1955 Carter Products launched its new tranquilizer Miltown with a huge marketing blitz; Miltow... more In 1955 Carter Products launched its new tranquilizer Miltown with a huge marketing blitz; Miltown soon became one of America's earliest ''blockbuster'' celebrity drugs. In 1981, federal agents shut down a network of ''stress clinics'' and arrested the owners, medical staff, and other personnel for illegally trafficking in the sedative Quaalude; Quaalude soon became a ''Schedule I Controlled Substance.'' Both of these stories are familiar, indeed archetypal, moments from America's postwar medical system. As the Miltown example reminds us, this fundamentally commercial system was built on the creation and courting of consumer demand for medical products and services, particularly drugs. As the Quaalude example shows, however, this system also incorporated tools for reining in excessive consumer demand. Together the two episodes affirm an enduring irony of the American medical system: the need for regulatory campaigns to tame lively markets for drugs that had become popular, in part, because of advertising campaigns. This article uses the Miltown and Quaalude sagas to explore the issue of consumer demand for prescription medicines, arguing that efforts to stoke or quash that demand have shaped (and linked) America's medical system and its drug control regimes.

Laura D. Hirshbein, American Melancholy: Constructions of Depression in the Twentieth Century

Social History of Medicine, 2011

In American Melancholy: Constructions of Depression in the Twentieth Century, Laura Hirshbein joi... more