Monthly Archives: March 2011

Wait a Minute– Meth is the New Meth!

Posted on March 29, 2011 by

In a startling reversal of last week’s panic over Oxycontin, the NY Times reported today that many states are facing “a surging methamphetamine problem,” and contemplating a drastic measure to stop it: making the pseudoephedrine-based cold medicines that are meth’s … Continue reading →

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Recovery Lifestyle, 2.0

Posted on March 28, 2011 by

Today witnesses the launch of TheFix.com, a new “sober lifestyles” site offering “addiction and recovery, straight up” (their words, not mine).  The site is the brainchild of former magazine publisher and recovering alcohol abuser Maer Roshan, who discovered recently while … Continue reading →

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The Points Interview: Sarah Meacham

Posted on March 25, 2011 by

We’re delighted to present the sixth installment of the Points Interview, in which we make our first foray into the colonial period in North America.  Points talks with Prof. Sarah Hand Meacham, author of Every Home a Distillery: Alcohol, Gender, … Continue reading →

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Are Drug Traffickers Re-Colonizing Africa?

Posted on March 24, 2011 by

In 2009 the West African country of Guinea Bissau made a rare and brief appearance in the international media when, in the early hours of March 2nd, President Vieira was assassinated—apparently at the hands of units of the military.  Only … Continue reading →

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The Points Interview: Barbara W. Grossman

Posted on March 21, 2011 by

The fifth installment of the Points Interview takes us on our first venture into biography as a dimension of drugs history.  Here, we talk with Barbara Wallace Grossman, author of A Spectacle of Suffering: Clara Morris on the American Stage (Southern … Continue reading →

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Points on Policy: Medical Marijuana

Posted on March 21, 2011 by

A spate of recent articles in the national and alternative press have examined Oakland, California’s very interesting attempts to create a marijuana industrial complex that would throw off revenue to the cash starved city and state.  As a sidebar, some … Continue reading →

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Oxy is the New Meth

Posted on March 18, 2011 by

The New York Times gleefully reports today on the bust of  Staten Island Oxycodone ring whose leaders shilled the pills out of ice cream trucks parked in the borough’s suburban neighborhoods.   This is slightly different in substance but identical in … Continue reading →

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R.I.P., Alice D. Millionaire

Posted on March 15, 2011 by

The New York Times reports the death of chemist Augustus Stanley Owsley III, pioneer of industrially produced LSD.

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Notes From the (Tobacco) Field

Posted on March 15, 2011 by

It was my great pleasure to have recently attended a public lecture at the University of Florida by Professor Jean Stubbs, who is currently in residence here at the Center for Latin American Studies as the Spring 2011 Bacardi Family … Continue reading →

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The Points Interview: Carol Benedict

Posted on March 14, 2011 by

The fourth installment of the Points Interview series is ready, and I’m happy to say that it takes us into the fascinating world of tobacco history.  Carol Benedict is author of Golden-Silk Smoke: A History of Tobacco in China, 1550-2010, set … Continue reading →

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