HIS 401SEM—Altered America: Alcohol and Drug History

Do you use drugs? You probably do. And you?re not alone: most Americans regularly use at least some drugs, whether it be beer, coffee, cigarettes, Adderall, NyQuil, marijuana, OxyContin, heroin, or something else. Drug taking is something most Americans share. USH Yet what we share also divides us. Some drug markets are legal and well-advertised, others are illegal and clandestine. Some drug use saves lives, other use kills. Where a person?s drug use falls on this spectrum?whether it harms or helps, brings praise or condemnation, raises stock prices or fills prisons?does not depend on the pharmacological characteristics of the drugs involved. Instead it is determined by social contexts of manufacture, commerce, and consumption. These context, in turn, are shaped by culture and politics: by our understanding of disease and the configuration of our medical system; by our understanding of morality and the configuration of our criminal justice system; by our understanding of self-fulfillment and the configuration of our consumer culture; and by our understanding of race, class, and gender and the configuration of our social hierarchies. In other words, they are shaped by history. This course explores the history of alcohol and other drugs, using selected readings and a guided primary research paper to discover how drug takers, drug sellers, and drug police helped make and remake modern America