Texas’ history of addiction treatment can be seen as a dance in place: public opinion swings, the Legislature takes one step forward, then two political steps back. Ultimately, little progress is made. Today’s attitudes aren’t dissimilar to the century-old ones described in historian Holly M. Karibo’s new book, Rehab on the Range: A History of Addiction and Incarceration in the American West (University of Texas Press, November 2024).
As Karibo acknowledges in her introduction, the book’s many historical arguments “will likely sound very familiar to twenty-first century readers.” Moral panic about opiates and the shifting demographics of drug users. Doctors withholding care out of very real fear of legal retribution. Fierce disagreements over whether addiction is a medical, legal, or societal issue.
She lays out a detailed institutional history of one experimental rehab center in Texas, a place meant to be a “radical reimagining of the nation’s approach to addiction.” Plans for the center drummed up “unyielding optimism that this new program would provide a modern fix to a modern problem.”
