Canada Dry or High Times?: A Historiographical Look at Drugs and Alcohol in Canada

Abstract

Drugs and alcohol have been featured in Canadian history as critical commodities that influenced legal decisions, social interactions, medical options, and even trade decisions. Canadian historians have examined alcohol, drugs, temperance reformers, and intoxicated Canadians in ways that deepen our understanding of how mind-altering products have influenced our Canadian values and how those ideas have changed over time. In this historiographical article, I examine how Canadian historians have responded to trends in historical scholarship that embrace a focus on social history, labour, women, medicine, colonialism, and culture. I argue that alcohol and drugs are ubiquitous in these historiographical shifts but that the uneven pace of decriminalizing intoxication has also led to new sources of information, new historical voices, and perhaps the need to rethink how our attitudes towards psychoactivity have affected our understanding of Canadian history.