Throughout the 1800s, opium and cocaine could be easily obtained to treat a range of ailments in Canada. Dependency, when it occurred, was considered a matter of personal vice. Near the end of the century, attitudes shifted and access to drugs became more restricted. How did this happen? Dan Malleck examines the conditions that led to Canada’s current drug laws. Drawing on newspaper accounts, medical and pharmacy journals, professional association files, asylum documents, physicians’ case books, and pharmacy records, Malleck demonstrates how a number of social, economic, and cultural forces converged in the early 1900s to influence lawmakers and criminalize addiction. His research exposes how social concerns about drug addiction had less to do with the long pipe and shadowy den than with lobbying by medical professionals, a growing pharmaceutical industry, and concern about the morality and future of the nation.

This collection captures key themes and issues in the broad history of addiction and vice in the Anglo-American world. Focusing on the long nineteenth-century, the volumes consider how scientific, social, and cultural experiences with drugs, alcohol, addiction, gambling, and prostitution varied around the world. What might be considered vice, or addiction could be interpreted in various ways, through various lenses, and such activities were interpreted differently depending upon the observer: the medical practitioner; the evangelical missionary; the thrill seeking bon-vivant, and the concerned government commissioner, to name but a few. For example, opium addiction in middle class households resulting from medical treatment was judged much differently than Chinese opium smoking by those in poverty or poor living conditions in North American work camps on the west coast, or on the streets of East London. This collection will assemble key documents representing both the official and general view of these various activities, providing readers with a cross section of interpretations and a solid grounding in the material that shaped policy change, cultural interpretation, and social action.

Booze, dope, smokes, and weed. Mind-altering, mood-changing substances have been part of human society for millennia. And the history of drugs and alcohol is infused with what we understand as their proper and improper use. Pleasure and Panic reveals how cultural fears and social, political, and economic disparities have always been deeply embedded in attitudes about drugs and alcohol. Long before John Lennon testified at Canada’s Le Dain Commission in favour of marijuana decriminalization, social movements existed to challenge the view that consumption of mind-altering substances, especially by young people, posed a danger to society. The contributors to this collection explore how drugs and alcohol intersect with diverse histories, including gender, medicine, popular culture, and business. Pleasure and Panic brings a dispassionate voice to current debates about liberalizing drug and alcohol laws and challenges existing ideas about how to deal with the so-called problems of drug and alcohol use.

Drugs take strange journeys from the black market to the doctor's black bag. Changing marijuana laws in the United States and Canada, the opioid crisis, and the rising costs of pharmaceuticals have sharpened the public's awareness of drugs and their regulation. Government, industry, and the medical profession, however, have a mixed record when it comes to framing policies and generating knowledge to address drug use and misuse. In Strange Trips Lucas Richert investigates the myths, meanings, and boundaries of recreational drugs, palliative care drugs, and pharmaceuticals as well as struggles over product innovation, consumer protection, and freedom of choice in the medical marketplace. Scrutinizing how we have conceptualized and regulated drugs amid the pressing and competing interests of state regulatory bodies, pharmaceutical and for-profit companies, scientific researchers, and medical professionals, Richert asks how perceptions of a product shift – from dangerous substance to medical breakthrough, or vice versa. Through close examination of archival materials, accounts, and records, he brings substances into conversation with each other and demonstrates the contentious relationship between scientific knowledge, cultural assumptions, and social concerns. Weaving together stories of consumer resistance and government control, Strange Trips offers timely recommendations for the future of drug regulation.

This book provides the current state of knowledge of basic mechanisms of adverse drug reactions (ADRs). The main focus is on idiosyncratic drug reactions because they are the most difficult to deal with. It starts with a general description of the major targets for ADRs followed by a description of what are presently believed to be mediators and biochemical pathways involved in idiosyncratic drug reactions. There is also a description of several examples of ADRs that serve to illustrate specific aspects of ADR mechanisms. Eventually the book shows that ultimately better methods are needed to predict which drug candidates are likely to cause ADRs and which patients are at increased risk. But at present research seems to be far from this goal.

Leading experts illustrate how sophisticated computational data mining techniques can impact contemporary drug discovery and development In the era of post-genomic drug development, extracting and applying knowledge from chemical, biological, and clinical data is one of the greatest challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical Data Mining brings together contributions from leading academic and industrial scientists, who address both the implementation of new data mining technologies and application issues in the industry. This accessible, comprehensive collection discusses important theoretical and practical aspects of pharmaceutical data mining, focusing on diverse approaches for drug discovery—including chemogenomics, toxicogenomics, and individual drug response prediction. The five main sections of this volume cover: A general overview of the discipline, from its foundations to contemporary industrial applications Chemoinformatics-based applications Bioinformatics-based applications Data mining methods in clinical development Data mining algorithms, technologies, and software tools, with emphasis on advanced algorithms and software that are currently used in the industry or represent promising approaches In one concentrated reference, Pharmaceutical Data Mining reveals the role and possibilities of these sophisticated techniques in contemporary drug discovery and development. It is ideal for graduate-level courses covering pharmaceutical science, computational chemistry, and bioinformatics. In addition, it provides insight to pharmaceutical scientists, principal investigators, principal scientists, research directors, and all scientists working in the field of drug discovery and development and associated industries.