Welfare, temperance and compulsory commitment to care for persons with substance misuse problems: a comparative study of 38 European countries.

AIMS: The study explores the existence and types of law on compulsory commitment to care (CCC) of adult substance misusers in Europe and how such laws are related to variations in demographics, alcohol consumption and epidemiology in misuse of opiates, cocaine, amphetamines, temperance culture heritage, health and welfare expenditure, and involvement and role of the state in welfare distribution. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Legal information on laws on CCC of misusers was obtained primarily through a survey of 38 European countries. Predictors of laws on CCC, and types of such, were analyzed from country descriptors in multivariate models. RESULTS: A majority (74%) of the explored countries have a law concerning CCC. The most common type of CCC law is within criminal justice legislation (45%), but civil CCC is almost as frequent (37%). These two models of CCC legislation are related to differences in cultural heritage and welfare distribution models. CONCLUSIONS: Temperance cultures, i.e. countries with a history of a strong temperance movement, and countries with a Beveridgean distribution of welfare, i.e. through the state, tend to favor civil CCC, while countries with a Bismarckian distribution of welfare, i.e. through insurance with less state interference, tend to favor CCC within criminal justice legislation.

Edward Forbes (1815-1854) and the exhibition of natural order in Edinburgh.

The roles, affordances and social agency of natural history museums are discussed in relation to the writings of Edward Forbes. These signal a motivation, in the mid-nineteenth-century, to naturalize the established social order through the systematic arrangement and display of natural history specimens. The perceived importance of the embodied messages of social order, as an antidote to radicalism and revolution, overrode concerns about temperance and abstinence and immediate fears for the physical safety of collections. The tensions between temperance, and the broader concerns about social order, were played out over the matter of the museums themselves being licensed premises.

Alcoholic dogs and glory for all: the Anti-Saloon League and public relations, 1913.

In 1913, the Anti-Saloon League of America declared its intention to pursue national prohibition. While it continued to adhere to its core principles of agitation, it expanded its communication efforts and entered a partnership with the Scientific Temperance Federation, a spin-off of the education arm of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The League's tactics were not necessarily new to the temperance movement -- or even to other reform movements of the time. What did set it apart was its single-minded focus on stopping the liquor traffic. Tracing through archival artifacts the League's communication strategies and tactics during 1913, then, this study contributes to a larger body of work that seeks to expand on the traditional model of public relations history.

Prohibition possibly prohibited: Iowans voicing temperance concerns, 1929-1933.

Prohibition voices supported their cause through community events as well as public speeches and political debates between 1929 and 1933, the last years before the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. Many activists and average citizens continued to believe in Prohibition with a social, moral, or economic reasoning. Although no Carrie Nations had re-emerged, Prohibition still possessed strong supporters led by strong voices. The three major leaders in Iowa were Senator Smith Wildman Brookhart, John Brown Hammond, and Ida B. Wise. Each created an activist persona. All three believed Prohibition could, should, and would work for the economic, social, and moral welfare not only Iowans but all Americans.

Temperance internationalism: Guy Hayler and the World Prohibition Federation.

The World Prohibition Federation, organized in 1909, and the International Record, published from 1917 to 1968, sought to internationalize the temperance movement by collecting and disseminating anti-drink news from around the globe. The Federation was based in London, and most of its activities were English-speakers. A British reformer named Guy Hayler served as its honorary president for thirty years and edited the "International Record" until his death in 1943. The Federation emphasized that prohibitionists comprised a moral community, united regardless of race, religion, nationality, or politics. Poorly funded, the Federation had difficulty competing with the World League against Alcoholism after the Anti-Saloon League of America organized this rival propaganda society in 1919.

The evolution of U.S. temperance movements since repeal: a comparison of two campaigns to control alcoholic beverage marketing, 1950s and 1980s.

This paper compares the politics of a failed religious movement to ban alcohol advertising in the 1950s with the politics of a more secular, and partially successful, movement to regulate alcohol marketing in the 1970s and 1980s. Although the contexts of the two marketing control movements were quite different, the continuities were equally striking. Both employed arguments about youth, social order, and the power of mass media.

The "improved" public house, 1870-1950: the key to civilized drinking or the primrose path to drunkenness?

The Victorian temperance movement aimed to eliminate, not reform, public houses, but from 1870 interest began to be taken in promoting an "improved" public house which could promote counter-attractions to drink. Disinterested management, based upon public ownership or a trust company, was advocated as the best means of achieving this. There was, however, an ambiguity about the nature of the "improved" public house. Was the goal an austere establishment where the drinking could be controlled in the public interest, or was it a comfortable leisure centre which would promote civilized drinking? This ambiguity lay unresolved during the period of the Carlisle experiment in state control in the period after 1915. Increasingly during the inter-war years the policies of the state-run Carlisle scheme and the more go-ahead brewers converged. The issue was originally conceptualized as a moral one, then as one of national efficiency and finally as a commercial one.

Ivan Bratt: the man who saved Sweden from prohibition.

For forty years, until 1955, spirits were rationed in Sweden under a system of individual control. Local "System companies" had a monopoly on the retail trade in spirits and wine. Private profits on alcohol were also eliminated in the restaurants and the wholesale trade. Legislation was based on the proposals put forward by the physician Ivan Bratt (1878-1956), who presented his ideas in 1909 as an alternative to prohibition. Bratt had the support of leading personalities in Swedish medicine, newspapers and politics, and he also enlisted the support of some of the leaders of the powerful temperance movement. In 1922, Swedes voted against prohibition in a referendum by 51% to 49%. The Bratt system substantially reduced alcohol abuse. When it was abolished, drunkenness in the streets doubled. By 1960, when high taxes had replaced rationing as the policy for controlling the consumption of alcohol, delirium tremens had increased since the Bratt period from 160 cases a year to 700 cases a year.