Booze, dope, smokes, and weed. Mind-altering, mood-changing substances have been part of human society for millennia. And from Christian women touting prohibition to pot-smoking celebrities advocating legalization, history is infused with tension between what we understand as proper and improper use of drugs and alcohol. Pleasure and Panic reveals how cultural fears and social, political, and economic disparities have always been deeply embedded in attitudes about drugs and alcohol. Long before John Lennon testified at Canada’s Le Dain Commission in favour of marijuana decriminalization, social movements existed to challenge the view that consumption of mind-altering substances, especially by young people, posed a danger to society. Contributors to this fascinating collection examine how ideas about drugs and alcohol have been shaped and reshaped by reformers, politicians, health professionals, business people, and cultural icons. Covering topics such as nineteenth-century medical practice, temperance reform, the liquor business, and countercultural efforts to reform drug laws, they trace the sources of our current understanding. Whether for recreation, medication, socialization, or palliation, drugs and alcohol remain problematic pleasures. Pleasure and Panic brings a dispassionate voice to current debates about liberalizing drug and alcohol laws and challenges existing ideas about how to deal with the so-called problems of drug and alcohol use.