| dc.description.abstract | In between the 1960s and 1970s, reformers pushed federal courts and policymakers to treat alcoholic citizens with medicine and therapy rather than carceral punishment. In doing so, advocates attempted to fundamentally change the relationship between alcoholics and the federal government. This dissertation traces the rise and fall of two reform efforts, the decriminalization and modern alcoholism movements, which sought to alter the political and legal handling of alcoholics. Both movements asserted that alcoholics as American citizens deserved protections against undue punishment from the state. Additionally, they argued that alcoholics had the right to receive publicly subsidized treatment for their disease. With an analysis into the policies that resulted from these rights-claims, this dissertation examines the successes and limitations in the effort to medicalize the political and legal approaches to alcoholics in the second half of the twentieth century. It argues that differing class dynamics hampered reformers from achieving their lofty therapeutic goals. Even as more medicalized policies were put into practice throughout the 1970s, there continued to being an enduring thin line between punishment and treatment especially for alcoholics who were unemployed, impoverished, and visible to the public eye. The historiography on the politics surrounding substance abuse in the mid to late 20th century has been dominated by a focus on narcotics and the carceral expansion unleashed by the War on Drugs. This dissertation contends that bringing the history of alcoholism more fully into the picture adds needed nuance to the growing historiographical field on drugs and alcohol in the United States. By illuminating the political conversations surrounding alcoholics and addicts in the preceding decades, this dissertation illustrates the complicated dynamics leading up to the punitive policies of the 1980s. | |
