A Univ. of Calif., Davis student emailed me for assistance a couple of
days ago.  He asked for sources regarding the rise of
"neo-prohibitionism" in the U.S.  Following is the segment of my
response that might possibly be of interest/use to one or another
ATHG-Ler.  Ron Roizen
 
..on the pro side of the new public health
sensibility, the movement goes by several other names--the
New Public Health Approach (hereinafter, NPHA), the
agent-host-environment or risk factor models, the
disaggregationist model, the single distributionist model,
the alcohol problems model, and others--each (to some extent
at least) with its own associated literature.  A number of
brief descriptive accounts of the new movement's ascendancy
are available--including Gusfield (1982), Wagner (1987),
Heath (1989), Pittman (1991), and Room (1991).  Several
essays appearing in major newspapers are also worth looking
up--including Musto (1984), Luks (1983), Heath (1985), Hall
(1989), and Kolata (1991).  Both Newsweek & Time (cover
story, 20 May 85) marked the birth of a new national
sensibility with major articles in late 1984 and early 1985.
Also see Sherman (1985) in Fortune.
 
An interesting and useful place to follow the emergence of
the NPHA is in the pages of Gene Ford's magazine, Healthy
Drinking (formerly named Moderation Reader).  Ford is an
articulate and fierce civil libertarian who has filled his
magazine's pages with both accounts of and counterattacks
upon the new public health sensibility and its protagonists.
This is one of my favorite sources for following the
unfolding story.  (Contact Gene Ford Publications/4714 NE
50th St./Seattle, WA 98105; phone: 206-525-0449/fax:
206-523-0379.)
 
A recent, comprehensive, and authoritative statement of the
NPHA is available in Edwards et al. (1994).  One of the
interesting shifts associated with the new movement is the
increasing salience of public health professionals to
alcohol.  One can follow this trend, for example, in the
Annual Review of Public Health--from Room's (1984)
historically oriented essay, through Ashley and Rankin
(1988), to Mosher and Jernigan's (1989) strident
interventionism.  Walsh (1990) also provides a useful
picture of an increasingly activist and interventionist
public health attitude.  For a challenge to public health's
new disposition see Peele (1993).  Classic expressions of
the NPHA's perspective include Bruun et al. (1975--esp. re
the single-distributionist aspect), Beauchamp (1980), Moore
and Gerstein (1981), and a number of seminal journal
articles by sociologist Robin Room in the mid-1970s.
 
The rise of a alcohol-problems orietation--emphasizing
specific drinking-related problems such as drunk driving,
foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), underage drinking, warning
labels on alcoholic beverages, and alcohol's relation to
violence, untoward health consequences, and even AIDS--has
tended to crowd out the "alcoholism must be treated"
orientation of the period from (say) 1944 to the mid-1970s.
Useful historical and critical literature can be found in
connection with each of these individual alcohol-problems
areas--including, for example, Reinarman (1988) on MADD and
drunk driving; Knupfer (1991) on FAS, and Roman and Blum
(1991) on warning labels.
 
Ron Roizen
 
REFERENCES:
 
Ashley, Mary Jane, and Rankin, James G., "A public health
approach to the prevention of alcohol-related health
problems," Annual Review of Public Health 9:233-271, 1988.
 
Beauchamp, Dan E., Beyond Alcoholism: Alcohol and Public
Health Policy, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980.
 
Bruun, K. et al., Alcohol Control Policies in Public Health
Perspective, Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies, vol.
25, Helsinki: FFAS, 1975.
 
Edwards, Griffith, et al., Alcohol Policy and the Public
Good, Oxford, New York, Tokyo: Oxford University Press,
1994.
 
Gusfield, Joseph R., "Prevention: Rise, Decline and
Renaissance," pp. 402-425 in Gomberg et al. (eds.), Alcohol,
Science and Society Revisited, Ann Arbor and New Jersey:
University of Michigan and Rutgers Center of Alcohol
Studies, 1982.
 
Hall, Trish, "A New Temperance Is Taking Root in America,"
New York Times, 15 Mar 89, pp. A1, C6.
 
Heath, Dwight B., "The New Temperance Movement: Through the
Looking-Glass," Drugs & Society 3:143-168, 1989.
 
Heath, Dwight B., "In a Dither About Drinking," Wall Street
Journal, Mon., 25 Feb. 1985, p. 28.
 
Knupfer, Genevieve, "Abstaining for foetal health: The
fiction that even light drinking is dangerous," British
Journal of Addiction 86:1063-1073, 1991.
 
Kolata, Gina, ""Temperance: an old cycle repeats itself;
drinking and drug use fall, a trend experts say may
intensify," (Science Times Pages) New York Times v140 (Tue,
1 Jan 91):15(N), 35(L), col 1.
 
Luks, Allan, "'Neo-prohibition: pouring taxes and stigmas on
drunks," Washington Post v106 (Sun, 4 Sep 83):C1, col 1.
 
Moore, M.H., and Gerstein, D.R. (eds.), Alcohol and Public
Policy: Beyond the Shadow of Prohibition, Washington, D.C.:
Natl. Acad. Press, 1981.
 
Mosher, James, and Jernigan, David H., "New directions in
alcohol policy," Annual Review of Public Health 10:245-279,
1989.
 
Musto, David F., "New temperance vs. neo-prohibition," Wall
Street Journal, Mon., 25 Jun 84: 28(W), 26(E).
 
Peele, Stanton, "The conflict between public health goals
and the temperance mentality," American Journal of Public
Health 83(6):805-810, 1993.
 
Pittman, David J., "The New Temperance Movement," pp.
775-790 in Pittman and White, 1991.
 
Pittman, David J., and White, Helene Raskin (eds.), Society,
Culture, and Drinking Patterns Reexamined, New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, 1991.
 
Reinarman, Craig, "The social construction of an alcohol
problem: The case of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and
scoial control in the 1980s," Theory and Society 17:91-120,
1988.
 
Roman, Paul M., and Blum, Terry C., "The Medicalized
Conception of Alcohol-Related Problems: Some Social
Consequences of Murkiness and Confusion," pp. 753-774 in
Pittman and White, 1991.
 
Room, Robin, "Cultural changes in drinking and trends in
alcohol problems indicators: Recent U.S. experience," pp.
149-162 in Clark, Walter, and Hilton, Michael E. (eds.),
Alcohol in America: Drinking Practices and Problems, Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1991.
 
Room, Robin, "Alcohol Control and Public Health," Annual
Review of Public Health 5:293-317, 1984.
 
Sherman, S.P., "America's New Abstinence," Fortune 18 March
1985.
 
Wagner, David, "The new temperance movement and social
control in the workplace," Contemporary Drug Problems
14:539-556, 1987.
 
Walsh, Diana Chapman, "The shifting boundaries of alcohol
policy," Health Affairs, pp. 47-62, (Summer) 1990.
 
Weisberger, Bernard A., "Reflections on the dry season,"
American Heritage, pp. 28 & 30, (May/June) 1990.