Discovering Addiction: the Science and Politics of Substance Abuse Research
by Nancy D. Campbell

Based on archival research and oral-history interviews with dozens of addiction researchers, Discovering Addiction brings the history of human and animal experimentation in addiction sci¬ence into the present. Professor Campbell examines the birth of addiction science—the National Academy of Science’s project to find a pharmacological fix for narcotics addiction in the late 1930s—and then explores the ongoing studies of the “opium problem,” revealing how new rules regarding informed consent and the calculus of risk and benefit have affected research culture.

Discovering Addiction also takes a soul-searching look at the still unresolved debate over fed¬eral prison research that took place in the 1970s, suggesting that it is possible to differentiate between ethical and unethical research by looking closely at how science is made.

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Nancy D. Campbell is Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the author of Using Women: Gender, Drug Policy, and Social Justice.