New Book Just Published: Fierce Chemistry: History of UK Drug Wars

Here’s what the publisher says

In July 1920, when the first Dangerous Drugs Act was passed, the UK drug scene was limited to small groups of Soho night people, smoking opium and sniffing coke and some middle and upper class people (mainly women) around the country quietly getting private morphine prescriptions from their GP … Now, exactly 100 years on, we have hundreds of thousands of people using a whole smorgasbord of different drugs. How did that happen?The nineteenth century saw scientific developments whose unintended consequences laid the foundations for the modern explosion of recreational and chronic drug use, which has in turn sparked a worldwide effort to stop it.

At first encouraged by the commercial opportunities afforded by widespread ‘cures’ – many consisting of little more than heroin or cocaine – by the twentieth century a moral crusade had gathered force to curb this new social ill. In truth, although the dangers of drug use were very real, the origins of the war against drugs stemmed from wider fears in society. In this new book, a culmination of a lifetime of research and writing on the topic, Harry Shapiro isolates the different elements behind the war on drugs – drugs and race, youth culture – to present an issue reaching boiling point. Using a range of interviews, documentation, private papers, government archives and studies from the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence, Shapiro synthesises a tale of crime, money, politics and exploitation bigger than any country.

Vice review the book. Saying…

Unsurprisingly, in the century since the UK started legislating against drug use, a lot has happened – as leading drug expert Harry Shapiro charts in his newly published drug history bible, Fierce Chemistry: A History of UK Drug Wars. The book tracks the beginnings of the UK drug scene, from cliques of well-off Soho party people in the 1920s to the expansive narco landscape of today. It’s a story of addiction, politics, drug culture, the growth of a huge, illegal industry and the battle to keep it at bay.

Armed with a unique treasure trove of drug literature, Shapiro reveals how our drug war history is a strange brew of the arcane, the bizarre and the shocking. Having delved into the book, here’s my pick of the oddest bits.

Back in December of 1918, the Daily Express claimed that drug supply in the capital was in the hands of a criminal organisation called “The Vice Trust”, which had interests in prostitution, gambling and nightclubs. Its major drug dealers were women who sold primarily to other women on London’s club scene.

Shapiro says, at the time, there was no evidence of violent gangs being involved in drugs supply, with the most infamous opium and cocaine dealer being a rich West End playboy named “Brilliant” Billy Chang.

BRENDA DEAN PAUL IN 1952. PHOTO: KEYSTONE PRESS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Although the apparent cocaine overdoses of stage star Billie Carleton and dancer Freda Kempton shone a light on the London drug scene, it was a socialite actress, Brenda Dean Paul, who – in Shapiro’s words – was “arguably Britain’s first publicly exposed high-society drug user”.

A member of the Bright Young Things, a group of young celebrity aristocrats who spent their time driving fast cars and partying, she became addicted to morphine after a car crash. After many arrests and a spell in prison, she became a poster girl for the horrors of addiction. She was dogged by drugs, and the tabloid press, until she overdosed aged 52.

Abraham Jones, 40, was arrested alongside Elizabeth Cocklin, 29, on the 7th of March 1929 at a Chinese restaurant in Limehouse, east London, charged with unauthorised cannabis possession, an offence that had been introduced under Dangerous Drugs Act legislation in 1925.

The arresting officers testified that they had been keeping the pair under observation and had seen Jones pass Cocklin a paper packet that she’d had concealed inside one of her shoes. Jones was sentenced to three months of imprisonment with hard labour, while Cocklin was given the choice of a 40 shilling (£2) fine or a month’s imprisonment.

LADY DIANA COOPER WITH EDWARD VIII, DUKE OF WINDSOR. PHOTO: KEYSTONE PRESS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Leading London socialite (and David Cameron’s great aunt) Lady Diana Cooper was a “confirmed and unapologetic” injector of morphine. In 1915, she wrote enthusiastically about her drug experiences, which she described as “orgies”, in the company of Katharine Asquith, wife of the then Prime Minister’s son.

In 1926, the Royal Academy hung her portrait as a replacement for Breakdown, a painting depicting a naked white girl dancing to the sounds of a Black saxophonist, after the Colonial Office objected on the grounds that “it would make ruling our natives difficult”.

Club Eleven, a New Orleans-style basement jazz club, was the original Soho drug den. Run by jazz legend Ronnie Scott in the 1950s, Club Eleven had a racially mixed clientele and was full of young people, musicians and “vipers” (the slang name for cannabis smokers, supposedly derived from the hissing sound heard when a joint was lit).

It was a London dealing hub for weed, heroin and coke, and the target of the first ever modern police drug raid, in 1950.

Read more at    https://www.amazon.com/Fierce-Chemistry-History-Drug-Wars/dp/1445665441