Why are cocaine and LSD considered “drugs” but not alcohol and tobacco? How did marijuana go from being a feared “killer weed” to a safe
and increasingly legal intoxicant? In this course, we will consider what it means for the category of “drugs” to be a social construct by exploring
how ideas about psychoactive substances have varied over time and across cultures, focusing mainly on the Americas. Recognizing how drug
prohibition and the “war on drugs” have disproportionately impacted marginalized communities, you will practice thinking critically about how
popular portrayals of “traffickers” and “addicts” shape how you view people different from yourself. Together, we will also ask whether strategies
like legalizing drugs or medicalizing psychedelics can effectively remedy the inequalities produced by criminalization. Ultimately, you will leave
this course with a greater awareness of how cultural narratives about “drugs” produce, challenge, and complicate formations of difference in the
world.