Narcotic drugs taken for recreational purposes were, until comparatively recently, mainly associated with the 'Orient'. They were used in Europe only by 'Orientals' and some adventurous and transgressive literati, though they were also hidden in patent medicines and tonics. In Asia and Africa, however, their use was fairly widespread, and they became part of the language of empire, helping to define the Other in contrast to the West, and to justify the latter's self-proclaimed superiority. This may be one reason drugs were so feared when they started spreading in Europe and the US in the 1960s: they threatened to reduce the superior race to the level of those it had dominated so effectively for two centuries. In particular, drugs were thought to undermine self-control - an essential prerequisite, of course, for controlling others.

LRB 4 March 2004 | PDF Download