HIST1911

When and how did some drugs become a social problem? Why is cocaine illegal in the United States? Who is winning the war on drugs? These questions and others are at the heart of this seminar. We will examine the longer history of controlled substances throughout the Western Hemisphere, focusing in particular on the scope of the so-called war on drugs of the past 30 years. We will read books, articles, and websites dealing with illegal drugs, and we will watch documentaries and full-length films dealing with drug use, drug markets, and the violence surrounding drugs. Our study of the past is intended to help us understand the present context and to allow us to imagine a different future regarding these complicated issues.

This course is taught by Professor Patrick McNamara from the Department of History. Dr. McNamara has been interested in drugs for a long time. While that interest has been primarily academic, he remains fascinated by the longer, hemispheric history of drug use by Indigenous populations for ceremonies, the export and consumption of illegal drugs, and the effects of the “drug war” on populations throughout the Americas. As a historian of Mexico, he has watched a peaceful country fall into the abyss of unrestrained violence and destruction for the sake of a consumer drug market in the United States. Contradictions abound within the history of drugs in the Americas, and this seminar will grapple with those issues from a hemispheric perspective. No drug use will be allowed in the seminar, except caffeine.

001475

Periodic Fall