202 pages . illustrated with B&W photos . In this entertaining and illuminating book . Marek Kohn vividly records the cocaine scandals and moral panics which followed the end of the First World War . as drug use . especially the use of opium and cocaine , which was only criminalized in 1916 . was transformed into a national menace . The cast of characters includes Billie Carleton , A West End musical actress, whose highly publicized death from an overdose in 1918 fueled public shock . Brilliant Chang, a Chinese restaurant proprietor . and Edgar Manning, a jazz drummer from Jamaica . identified as the villains of the affair and invested with a highly charged sexual menace . Around them in the London streets of Shaftesbury Avenue an d in Chinatown . there swirled a raffish group of seedy and rebellious hedonists . The whole of Britain was horrified and fascinated . The " drugs problem " was born . amid a gush of exotic tabloid detail . The timely reissue of this cult classic . with a new afterword by the author . reveals the roots of today's drug ' crisis ' . and provides crucial background for the current debate about de-criminalization of many substances . " Dope Girls - The Birth of the British Drug Underground " . by Marek Kohn , with new afterword . Revised & Updated. creased covers, trace of moisture (steam).