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Maurice Seevers, the stimulants and the political economy of addiction in American biomedicine

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Abstract

From about 1930 to the late 1960s a definition of addiction dominated in the United States that made opiate-style abstinence reactions essential, and distinguished sharply between true addiction and merely psychological drug habituation. This definition was so narrow that it left all stimulants out of the addictive category, and it was not uncontested. By looking at the postwar efforts of one of the chief architects of this definition, pharmacologist Maurice Seevers, to defend his conception of addiction in both scientific and policy realms, I demonstrate the contingency of this construction of addiction upon methodological commitments and industrial interests related to amphetamines and tobacco.

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Notes

  1. These methods were transmitted to the tobacco industry before their publication, via pharmacologist Harvey Haag; Seevers to Haag, 25 January 1950, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/kxi54f00 (Bates 950163678). I have found no discussion of nicotine pharmacology research in Seevers’ publications from the 1950s, despite his development of the methods.

  2. E.S. Harlow to H.R. Hanmer, W.R. Harlan, 17 February 1954, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ycr94f00 (Bates 961007771/7772); Harlow to Hamner, ‘Possible Animal Experiments On Cigarette Smoke Tars,’ 20 April 1955, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/atf34f00 (Bates 962006662).

  3. Harlow? [‘H’] memo, 8 March 1960, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fgu60a00 (Bates 966027156).

  4. Lovell White, 20 June 1994, ‘Re: Historical Overview of Definitions of Addiction/Dependence’, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bbc73a99 (Bates 3421418609-321418625).

  5. Harlow? [‘H’] 8 March 1960, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fgu60a00 (Bates 966027156); Harlow to Hanmer and Harlan, 8 March 1960, ‘re American Medical Association's Stand on Cigarette Smoking-Lung Cancer Controversy’, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/nel31a00 (Bates 950140808).

  6. Hanmer to Harlow, Harlan, 27 March 1962, memo re ‘Discussion with Dr MH Seevers, March 27, 1962, of Means for Obtaining Publicity of Cohen-Heimann Article’, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qbx31a00 (Bates 950277243); Harlow to Hamner and Harlan, 29 May 1962, memo re ‘Impending Action by the AMA on Lung Cancer Controversy. Report of Telephone Conversation with Dr MH Seevers today’, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/hel31a00 (Bates 950140798).

  7. Seevers to Harlow, 22 March 1962, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/cnh54f00 (Bates 950167102); Harlow to Hanmer, 25 June 1965, memo ‘Developments Regarding the action of the AMA on the smoking and health controversy. Reference: Conversation with Dr MH Seevers at the Roger Smith Hotel in Washington, DC, Sunday, June 24, 1962’, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/zdl31a00 (Bates 950140786/0787).

  8. Harlow to Hanmer, Harlan, 2 October 1962, ‘re US Public Health Service Panel for Study of the Tobacco and Health Situation. Reference: Telephone Conversation with Dr Seevers 10/1/62’, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qdl31a00 (Bates 950140771).

  9. Interview with Leonard Schumann, 15 July 1988, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/mto34c00 (Bates 83724687/4688).

  10. Oral Deposition of Charles LeMaistre, 20 August 1997, Texas v. American Tobacco, Civil Action 5-96CV91, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qks07a00 (Bates LEMAISTREC082097), pp. 144–186.

  11. Schumann interview, p. 10; Bayne-Jones (with LeMaistre) to Francis Blasingame, 2 July 1968, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/evq57a00 (Bates LG0047055-LG0047057).

  12. Seevers’ (1962) ‘psychotoxicity’ appears in the NRC addiction group's précis of the 1964–1965 WHO redefinition, but not in the 1965 WHO document itself (Eddy et al, 1965; WHO, 1965). The term never gained any official status as far as I am aware.

  13. Anon, 1 October 1964 ‘Conversation with Dr Seevers, Ann Arbor, Michigan’, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ole94a99 (Bates 105610974-105610978). In 1968, Seevers was still publicly defending the late 1950s version of the dual action theory. The work cited by a former student as Seever's retraction of the theory (Cochin, 1970) actually only renounces the original 1929 dual-action theory (Seevers and Deneau, 1968).

  14. ‘Conversation with Dr Seevers, Ann Arbor, Michigan’. Quote from A. Yeaman, 17 July 1963, ‘Implications Of Battelle Hippo I & II And The Griffith Filter’, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/xrc72d00 (Bates 1802.05). Tobacco scientists worried that lower nicotine might free smokers of their ‘entrenched [drug] habit’ as early as 1959; RDW, June 1959, ‘Complexity of the PA5A Machine and Variables Pool’, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fnb32a99 (Bates 100099115-100099117) (see Hirschhorn, forthcoming).

  15. G.H. Hall, 26 February 1968, ‘Role of Nicotine in Health. Report on a Conversation with Dr MH Seevers’, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tnu82a99 (Bates 100182204-100182206).

  16. I am thinking especially of the experts providing the science, diagnostic guidelines and treatment standards in fields more highly commercialized than substance abuse, such as attention deficit and mood disorders (see Cosgrove et al, 2006).

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  1. School of History and Philosophy, University of NSW, Sydney, 2052, Australia

    Nicolas Rasmussen

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Rasmussen, N. Maurice Seevers, the stimulants and the political economy of addiction in American biomedicine. BioSocieties 5, 105–123 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2009.7

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