Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground

by Marek Kohn

A rip–roaring, eye–opening account of how fear about sex, race, and class led to the criminalization of drugs in Britain.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Crime, Drugs, Sociology, London, British Literature

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Marek Kohn is a British science writer on evolution, biology and society.

Reviews

[Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's 1919, TV hasn't been invented yet, half the men of your generation are dead – of course you're going to want to go down Soho and get off your tits on pharmaceuticals. This book is a fascinating history of Britain's earliest drugs scandals, and how they focused attention on the behaviour of young women during and just after the First World War.

Before then, the concept of drugs as a social evil didn't really exist. You could nip to the chemist's and pick up as much cocaine or morphine as you could carry, then shoot up in the street outside if you wanted – with occasional addictions or overdoses considered to be a matter of individual weakness rather than societal immorality.

That all changed when the media latched on to a couple of high-profile deaths involving young, photogenic women. From the point of view of stirring up a media frenzy, it was especially important that drugs allowed these white girls to mix with men from other races (in the Chinese community particularly – the main dealer in central London was a Chinese man with the admirable name of Brilliant Chang). You can imagine the narratives that resulted, which in many ways have continued, with variations, right down to the present day.

The actual cases Kohn looks at are interesting enough in their way, but even more interesting is the social context that he positions them in. The period immediately after the war was one of massive social change, especially in the role of women, which did cause some anxiety from the usual quarters. With the war over, the vagueness of men's role in society was once again causing them some nervousness: ‘As they shed their uniforms,’ Kohn writes, ‘it was men who faded into obscurity, while women became ever more vivid.’

Women's occasional adoption of recreational drugs was, perhaps, just an easily targeted variation on their sudden adoption of wearing makeup, smoking in public, dining out alone, wearing short dresses and short hair, and walking the streets unchaperoned. Newspaper editors and police chiefs were quivering with indignation.

It's amazing to see how the outlines of these narratives, as put together in public frenzies of the 1910s and '20s, have stayed with us through all the subsequent tabloid outrages and wars on drugs. To understand where that all comes from, and what's really behind it, this neat study is an excellent place to start, and should have most people rethinking at least a couple of their assumptions. Ask your dealer for a copy today.

[K.J. Charles]

Very readable social history covering drug use in the UK, the overreaching powers of DORA and criminalisation, and some of the key scandals that shaped opinion. Quite short, snappily written, interesting stuff.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground is a really interesting narrative cultural history of how cocaine and heroin went from medicines dispensed by any pharmacist to dangerous illegal substances in Britain during the early twentieth century. Kohn argues that the changing socioeconomic roles of women during the First World War, combined with a great deal of racism, created moral panic about drug addiction. The narrative is structured around several cases of young women whose deaths by overdose were much publicised and discussed. These examples are an interesting and effective way of teasing out the links between changing social norms, media coverage, politics, and law enforcement around drugs. In the twenty-first century, the War on Drugs disproportionately targets men of colour and it appears this has been the case since it first began.

I found it astonishing in retrospect how swift the turnaround of laws and attitudes to cocaine and heroin was:

In 1912, an International Opium Convention committed participating countries to pass laws restricting opium, heroine, morphine, and cocaine to medical uses. Two years later, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act established [Hamilton] Wright's long-sought exemplary regime at a national level in the US. Britain, however, was lukewarm about implementing the international agreement: it did not want to impede its own pharmaceuticals industry, and it did not see any domestic need for an equivalent to the Harrison Act. Although anybody was free to walk into a chemist's shop and buy cocaine or morphine, subject to one or two formalities, very few chose to do so for purposes other than pain relief. Those who did were understood to be dangers only to themselves. The government did not feel that society needed to be protected from them by criminal law.

Five years later, jailing a designer of theatrical costumes called Reggie de Veulle for supplying cocaine, a British judge remarked that it was 'a strange thing to reflect that until quite lately these drugs could be bought by all and sundry like so much grocery'.

I recently read Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty so found myself thinking about America's opioid crisis and oxycontin in the context of these early drug panics. Evidently what creates widespread drug addiction is not solely the addictive nature of the substances in question. Morphine, heroin, and oxycodone/oxycontin are all opioids with withdrawal symptoms if you stop taking them. I wonder if the additional ingredient for a crisis is marketing, particularly targeted at the suffering and desperate. Prior to the legal restrictions described in Dope Girls, pharmacists weren't systematically trying to get all their customers addicted to heroin or morphine, whereas this is what makes illegal drug dealing profitable. It was also the Sacklers' very successful business model for oxycontin. Obviously I generalise and addiction is more complicated than this.

Dope Girls did get me thinking about how counterproductive anti-drug laws can be, as well as how profoundly the popular perception of substances can change. Imagine if heroin was still available at every UK chemist, behind the counter next to the high-strength paracetamol. Perhaps it would be just something you'd take a couple of times after having a wisdom tooth removed. And if cocaine was similarly legal, I bet Starbucks would offer it as an option to enhance your latte.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating study about the origins of the "dope" culture in
Britain which exploded onto the front pages following the death
of Billie Carleton in 1918 from a suspected drug overdose. Carleton
was a struggling actress with a succession of "mentors" who was
finally making her name in some West End productions but her
death only brought to the surface the sub culture of drug peddlers
hob-nobbing with the bright young things of London café society
ie Diana Manners. The government then began a series of deportations
on the "three strikes and you're out" policy as the majority of
drug victims seemed to be flappers who needed cocaine to dance the
night away at seedy Soho nightclubs and racism reared it's ugly
head when the major figures of the drug trade turned out to be
African Americans or Oriental, charismatic figures like "Brilliant"
Chang. Newspapers fuelled the fire with stories about "frail
white women" held in thrall by "smiling yellow men" and the
race was on to save the English "rose" from the insidious
"yellow peril"!!
An extremely readable book, Marek Kohn explores the frenetic
London club scene of the twenties with stories about nightclub
entrepreneur Kate Meyrick and the girls who paid the ultimate
price such as Freda Kempton. Interspersed between this terrific
story are snippets from popular books which proved that drugs
were getting to be a big part of post World War 1 culture ie
"Dope" by Sax Rohmer (creator of Fu Manchu) and "Dope Darling"
by David Garnett.

[Amber Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

The transition from drugs being legal in the Victorian era to illegal is interesting and the race/gender issues surrounding the drug culture of this era is as well. Women, blacks and Asians were thought more susceptible to their passions and depraved behavior.
However, I found the author’s’ style to be extremely dry and to be at times quite unfocused. Interesting data often was buried in what I considered extraneous details so I often found this book tedious going.

[Lauren Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at cocaine and opium use in Britain after the First World War. Flappers, racism, sexism, the night-crawl society of Shaftesbury Avenue and Chinatown, suicides and sexual menace. It's quite a read and exposes how fear about sex, race, and class led to the criminalization of drugs.

[Caroline B · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is an updated version from the 1993 printing, from Granta 2024.
TW most of this book is about racism and a press interest that created a panic about drugs, vulnerable women and the foreigners said to prey on them.

The cases are presented from newspaper accounts and police reports that are recognised as biased. I would have liked the author to have looked further for first hand accounts or diaries or oral history, to develop the theme of the Bright Young Things of the 20s encountering drugs.

As it happens the only drugs covered are cocaine and heroin and the underworld is only sketched through those who died or went to prison. Some women's stories are told but none in their own worlds, so entirely from a masculine, patriarchal point of view.

[Linda Boa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fairly compact look at the origins of our Drug Laws - which haven't changed much in nearly 100 years. The author takes the view that it was in order to prevent white girls mixing with Chinese then black men which led to the laws being created, originally as part of a Defence of the Realm law. If you've a passing interest in criminology and its history, it's worth a read, but those with a thorough knowledge of the subject will find little new to learn, although the writer is skilled, and has clearly researched his subject thoroughly.

[Rhiannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Social and cultural history of the cocaine panic in London in the early 1920s. The panic was framed by popular anxiety about gender and race following the first world war, and took shape in the narrative that emerged in inquests, court cases, media and fiction from about 1916-1925

It'd be an interesting one to read alongside Sayers' Murder Must Advertise. Although that one is set in the 1930s the drug scene it depicts is very similar to scene a decade earlier which Kohn examines.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars for what it is , a series of case studies on the history of drug culture in London, very interesting although at times a bit repetitive. Reminded me of readings for my history degree in a good way! Interesting discussions on how the drug scare was used to enforce white male societal control in Britain and the racialisation and gendering of the ‘drug problem’ and lots of discussion of this directly playing out in specific areas of London! Happy I read this.

[Souvik Datta · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Stacy-Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good read. It shows how easy you can get access to drugs as well as getting caught up into it.

[Immie Charnley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thought it was fiction, it was not. I think I'll try the BBC (fiction) series instead

[Andres · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent writing about a really interesting topic

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be a very interesting social history about drug culture in the early 20th century. It focused on women drug users and the changing attitude of society towards drug taking. It was less about the legal or scientific study of drugs in culture and more about the way women were represented and the threat of the "coloured man". This is a period of history I don't know much about, but I thought that Kohn did a good job of analysing the changing roles and attitudes towards women, in particular women drug users in this period. Kohn also did a good job of analysing the racist fears of the time, how in many instances it was not the drugs that were seen as bad, but the idea that they led to white women having sex with Chinese or African men that was seen as the real threat. One of the most interesting chapters to me looked at the reputation of Chinese men as husbands and the views of them in the popular press versus actual accounts. The book also told the story of actresses who died of drug overdoses and the men who supplied drugs. It was an interesting look at agency, both in the women's choices as well as the legal ramifications. Kohn did a good job of comparing the inital problems with the more modern drug issues of the 80s and 90s. Indeed when discussing the Defense of the Realm act it reminded me a lot of the loss of freedoms that have come about as a result of the War on terror both in the UK and the US. In places the book fell a little short when simply "telling" what was known about the "notorious drug dealers" of the early 20s. But overall I found this very enjoyable and interesting reading.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book which traces the casual legal use of opiates and the eventual criminalisation of the substances based as much on bigotry as scientific evidence.
The book shows how racism and homophobia via media and court accounts led to convictions and manipulated the public into criminalisation of drugs ...drugs which went from being readily available from the chemist to steadfastly illegal in a short space of time..as such the rational of the public needed to change and the usual scapegoats where trotted out.
It's not neccessarily a 'pro drugs' book and to be honest I have no axe to grind in that respect neither but it does spell out how social drug use has morphed into other areas of criminality since the prohibition in much the way Ben Elton did within his fictional book 'high society'..not only have users become criminalised but a 'cottage industry' of crime has also arisen around dealing and theft to support habits..an interesting book and as other's mention not overtly academic so easy to follow and digest.

[Nicola Sellars · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had no idea about the history of drug addiction in this country and where it came from until I read this fascinating book. It really brings alive the period around the First World War and into the 1920s explaining the nature of drug addiction especially among women and the horrific way this was used in the press as young women were portrayed as being victims of black men who were heavily demonised. Marek Kohn looks in great detail at the reality behind the hysterical lies. The book is a very thorough study but not remotely dry or academic, it is easy to read and hard to put down. I'm writing a novel set in the aftermath of the First World War and this book helped enormously to give grit and reality to the period.

[rachael gibson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating insight with some great case studies, although it's not presented in an off-putting academic way for the casual reader. Interesting (not to mention disturbing) revelations about the widespread ignorance and racism in the era too. Definitely learnt a lot from this relatively quick read and it also opened my eyes to a few more books and films that I need to purchase next!

[Bex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book on a particular subject and regarding it's effect on the growing society, and as long as you read it, excepting it's subject matter and with interest, this was a great informative and interesting read

[Adelaide · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super intéressant, je connaissais pas du tout le sujet mais c’était très intéressant. Le seul bémol était la longueur parfois de la section sur la femme qui overdose et le procès qui m a un peu fait décrocher.

[Zoe · Rating 2 out of 5]

An okay non-fiction read. Probably could have been condensed.

What I took away was a cocaine overdose sounds an absolutely horrendous way to go and the incredibly named Willy Johnson was the first drug dealer arrested in London.

Work book club pick

[Ellen Rogers · Rating 1 out of 5]

Such a great concept and had the potential to be a fascinating and an engrossing non-fiction but somehow made this so dry and torturous to read. The book felt like an injustice to the history it was recounting

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice introduction to/pop history of Britain's drug culture. Lots of interesting case-studies, not overly academic.

[Mylesgorton · Rating 5 out of 5]

really explains how drugs "problems" came about - Heroin has a fascinating history.