Professionalization and narcotics: the medical and pharmaceutical professions and British narcotic use 1868-1926

This paper analyses the influence of medical professional organization on the formation of attitudes and policies toward narcotics in England. Restrictions on sale were one corollary, and the extension of medical control helped delineate a hypodermic morphine problem and disease theories of 'inebriety'. In the period 1916-26 the Home Office attempted to impose a penal and non-professional policy. The 1926 Rolleston Report marked a compromise between medical professionalism and public policy.