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Article ID: CBB218342384

Morphine on Trial: Legal Medicine and Criminal Responsibility in the Fin de Siècle (2019)

French Historical Studies
Volume: 42
Issue: 4
Pages: 623-653
Publication date: 2019
Language: English

DOI: 10.1215/00161071-7689198

URI: https://read.dukeupress.edu/french-historical-studies/article-abstract/42/4/623/140416/Morphine-on-TrialLegal-Medicine-and-Criminal

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Medicine and law Free will and determinism Criminal law Mental disorders and diseases Addictive behavior Morphine 20th century, early 19th century France

This article examines medical-legal debates over the criminal responsibility of morphine addicts in the fin de siècle, at a time when the use of psychotropic drugs was not yet illegal. Addicted defendants argued that morphine had produced a temporary state of insanity at the time of the crime. However, medical-legal experts emphasized the regulatory influence of morphine over the addicted body, navigating between moralistic arguments about the primacy of free will and deterministic arguments about the role of physiology in establishing criminal responsibility. Withdrawal, rather that morphine, served as the primary condition for criminal irresponsibility in most cases of addiction. Therefore morphine became a fundamental element of the addicted individual, required for these defendants to be considered sane and morally responsible.

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