4.0 Introduction

Chapter Introduction

In Canada prior to the early 1900s, there were no legal restrictions on the sale and consumption of psychoactive drugs, or moral stigma attached to substance use and addiction. Originally, drug dependence was not seen as immoral and/or regarded as a personal failing, crime, or an indication of a psychological problem. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, however, there was a redefinition of the meaning of certain forms of drug consumption behaviour. This shift was in part due to: the influence of Protestant values and beliefs, that emphasized sobriety and moral purity; the medical communities increasing concern with non-regulated medicine(s); and colonial discourses that propagated the belief that substance use was “a contagion brought to the west by racialized outsiders, and thus, a threat to white middle-class morality” (CDPC, 2021). This chapter explores the history of the Temperance movement and alcohol prohibition in Canada, as well as early Canadian drug policies. It also identifies the role that some influential people in Canada played in the development of early prohibitionist/criminalizing drug laws and the definition of problematic substance use behaviour.  

Chapter Objectives/Learning Outcomes

After completing the chapter materials, you should have an understanding of:

  1. The history of Canadian attitudes towards drugs, the people who use them, and ultimately how we control drug use.
  2. The history of Canadian attitudes towards alcohol, the people who use it, and how we control alcohol manufacture and use in Canada.
  3. The role of moral reformers in changing attitudes and policies towards psychoactive substances and the people who them.

Questions to Think About When Completing Chapter Materials

  1. Identify 2 key moral reformers who influenced prohibition in early Canada? What role did they play in the origins of Canadian drug laws?
  2. What are the dominant themes used by moral reformers to gain support for alcohol and drug prohibitionist policies (i.e., what claims did moral reformers make about alcohol/drugs and substance/alcohol use)?
  3. How has early Canadian drug prohibition shaped the ways in which Canadian’s view drugs, drug use and people who use substances (PWUS) today?
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Psychoactive Substances & Society (2nd Edition)* Copyright © 2024 by Jacqueline Lewis & Jillian Holland-Penney is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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