Cultural Studies paper by Nagy, Zsolt
The Origins and Evolution of Interwar Hungarian Public Discourse on Narcotics (Accepted)
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
In 1924 Hungary ratified and codified the 1912 Hague International Opium Convention, which was the first international drug control treaty. However, the new law that regulated and criminalized the use of narcotics in Hungary was not the result of internal debate and had no real domestic political will behind it. On the contrary, it was the result of external demands. Article 230 of the post- WW I Trianon Treaty required Hungary to join the Hague Convention. What was the contemporary Hungarian attitude towards drugs and drug users? How did it change in the aftermath of the law? In order to answer these questions, the following study examines how the contemporary media, artists and intellectuals, and various organizations—both governmental and non-governmental— discussed and represented the issue of narcotics. By examining the changing landscape of narcotics from the 1876 Hungarian law that regulated the utility of opiates in healthcare to the 1936 Convention for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs in Geneva, which essentially aimed to criminalize all activities related to non-scientific or non-medical uses of narcotics, my study hopes to contribute to the decentering of the history of drugs and drug prevention.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Zsolt Nagy (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2012) is a historian of modern Europe with specific focus on East and East-Central Europe. He is the author of Great Expectations and Interwar Realities: Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy, 1918-1941, published in 2017 by Central European University Press, as well as articles in Contemporary European History and the Hungarian Studies Review. His current research investigates the history of narcotics and drug prevention with special focus on Hungary.