Scott C. Martin wrote:
 
>        On another front, I'm planning a graduate seminar on alcohol
>and drug policy in US history for the Policy History program at
>Bowling Green, where I teach.  I'd be grateful for any suggestions for
>readings or syllabi of similar courses.  Thanks in advance.
 
I'm just now in the process of reviewing Kenneth J. Meier's new book,
_The Politics of Sin: Drugs, Alcohol, and Public Policy_ (Armonk, NY &
London, England: M.E. Sharpe, 1994) for SHAR.  It offers reasonably
good chapters on the history of U.S. drug policy (Ch. 2) and alcohol
policy (Ch. 5) in a comparative framework.  Meier's work relies
entirely on secondary sources--and so his bibliograpies for these
chapters are tickets to much of the drug/alcohol policy literature.
Drug policy books have more general appeal in the popular marketplace,
and there are, it seems, many more of them.  Alcohol policy studies are
usually directed toward a professional collegium--my "top ten" picks on
the alcohol side would probably include:  _Alcohol, Science and
Society_ (1945), McCarthy's _Alcohol & Social Responsibility_ (1949);
Tom Plaut's _Alcohol Problems: A Report to the Nation by the
Cooperative Commission on the Study of Alcoholism_ (1967); Bruun et
al., _Alcohol Control Policies in Public Health Perspective_ (1975--not
confined to U.S. policy, but important anyhow); Beauchamp, _Beyond
Alcoholism: Alcohol and Public Policy_ (1980); Moore & Gerstein,
_Alcohol and Public Policy: Beyond the Shadow of Prohibition_ (1981);
Room, "Alcohol Control and Public Health" (in Ann. Rev. Publ. Hlth
5:293-317, 1984); the two Institute of Medicine reports on alcoholism
treatment (1987, 1990); Edwards et al. _Alcohol Policy and the Public
Good_ (1994).
Then again, different picks might come to mind depending on how you
want to orient your seminar.  We can confer by e-mail if you like.
Yours, Ron