The Saboteurs of Britain's Opiate Policy: Overprescribing Physicians or American-Style “Junkies”?

Abstract

In the 1950s a new deviant drug user, the American-style “junkie,” appeared in the United Kingdom. Previous discussions of this subculture have not raised the issue of how it came to be patterned on a foreign model, rather than evolving as a domestic deviant style. A number of overprescribing physicians who nourished the new subculture by their generous prescribing practices provided the impetus for changes in British drug policy. It is argued that these “overprescribers” were the creation of the new generation of heroin users, as well as their creators.