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.