The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs and the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies: a history of the evolution of alcohol research.

This article reviews the history of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs as well as the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies. Each has its roots in the Yale Laboratory of Applied Physiology and the era shortly after the repeal of National Prohibition in the United States. The journal was founded as the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol in 1940 by Howard W. Haggard, M.D., director of the Yale Laboratory of Physiology. Alcohol, although not originally the sole focus of the laboratory, eventually became the main and then only focus. A Section of Alcohol Studies and later Center of Alcohol Studies formally became components of the laboratory. The faculty grew to include notable figures such as Elvin Morton Jellinek and Mark Keller, among other influential people who helped establish a modern, multidisciplinary, scientific approach to alcohol problems in the United States. The first alcohol education program, originally called the Summer Session of the School of Alcohol Studies, was also founded there in 1943. The center later moved to Rutgers University in New Jersey, becoming the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies in 1962. With it came the summer school and the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, which in 1975 became the Journal of Studies on Alcohol. The journal again changed names in 2007, becoming the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, reflecting an increasing focus among substance use researchers on drugs other than alcohol. This article discusses the influence of the journal and the center in the larger historical context of alcohol studies throughout the 20th century to the modern day.