Professor of History, University of North Florida
David Courtwright has described the history of drug use through books, essays, articles, lectures, and radio and film interviews. He has served on the Institute of Medicine´s Committee for Substance Abuse Coverage, which produced Treating Drug Problems (National Academy Press, 1990, 1992), a landmark study of the evolution, accessibility, and effectiveness of the nation´s public and private treatment systems. He has coauthored, with Herman Joseph and Don Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived: An Oral History of Narcotic Use in America, 1923-1965 (Tennessee, 1989). His most recent books are Dark Paradise: A History of Opiate Addiction in America (expanded ed., Harvard, 2001) and Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World (Harvard, 2001). Forces of Habit, which explores the origins, consequences, and regulation of psychoactive commerce throughout the world during the last 500 years, has been called the best single book we have on the history of psychoactive substances, their use and regulation. Dr. Courtwright teaches history at the University of North Florida, where he is a member of the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Health.