Addiction and Opiates

Alfred R. Lindesmith

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PART I The Nature of the Opiate Habit
Chapter 1 Method and Problem
Chapter 2 The Effects of Opiates
Chapter 3 Habituation and Addiction
Chapter 4 The Nature of Addiction
Chapter 5 Processes in Addiction
Chapter 6 Cure and Relapse
Chapter 7 A Critique of Current Views of Addiction
Chapter 8 Conclusions, Implications, Problems

PART II opiate Addiction as a Social Problem
(Except for minor editorial changes, the next four chapters are reproduced as they appeared in the original edition in 1947. Chapter 13 provides a postscript summarizing the nature of the problem in 1969.)
Chapter 9  The Problem in the United States during the Nineteenth Century
Chapter 10 Federal Anti-Narcotics Legislation
Chapter 11 The Effects of World War II
Chapter 12 Needed Reforms
Chapter 13 Postscript - 1968

APPENDIX KINDS OF DRUGS AND METHODS OF USE

PREFACE

This revision of my 1947 book, Opiate Addiction, has been prompted primarily by continued interest in and debate concerning the theory of addiction that was elaborated in it. The first part of the book, which represents a theoretical discussion of the social psychology of opiate addiction, has been extensively revised to incorporate new evidence and arguments, to make the theoretical position more clear, and to take negative criticism into account. The second part deals with the social problem of addiction and is relatively brief. Because I have analyzed the policy and problem aspects of addiction in some detail in my 1965 book, the Addict and the Law, I have simply reproduced my 1947 analysis with only a very few minor editorial changes and a brief postscript. The bibliography and the glossary of the addict's argot have been expanded and updated.