Pioneering Drug Policy Historian David Musto Dead at 74

by Phillip Smith, October 15, 2010, 11:47am, (Issue #654)



Dr. David Musto, who chronicled the history of US drug policy in 1973's The American
Disease: The Origins of Narcotics Control, died last Friday of an apparent heart attack
while traveling in China. The Yale University child psychologist and Carter
administration drug policy advisor was 74.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/files/musto.jpg
David Musto

The American Disease offered a comprehensive treatment of American drug use and
drug policy from the Civil War years to the present and is to this day a key text in the
history of US drug policy. In it Musto, uncovered the historical correlation between
public and official outrage over certain drugs and their use by feared or hated
communities.

After its initial publication in 1973, New York Times book reviewer James Markham
wrote that it would "probably become mandatory reading for anyone who wants to
understand how we got into our present mess." It was reissued and updated in 1987
and again in 1999.

Upon publication of The American Disease, Musto was named a presidential drug
policy advisor. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed him to the White House
Strategy Council on Drug Abuse.

Musto also wrote, with Pamela Korsmeyer, The Quest for Drug Control, and was
editor of One Hundred Years of Heroin and Drugs in America: A Documentary
History.

Musto's historical research led him to adopt nuanced positions on drug policy that
sometimes angered drug warriors and sometimes disappointed drug reformers. He
was critical of employee drug testing programs, skeptical of the efficacy of needle
exchange programs, and supported methadone maintenance for heroin addicts. He
also complained about the impulse among the public and officials to seek quick and
simple solutions to the complex problem of proper drug policy.

Musto died in Shanghai. He was in China to attend a ceremony honoring the
donation of his books and papers to Shanghai University and the creation of the
Center for International Drug Control Policy at the university.

_______________________________________________
THS mailing list