The Global Drug Wars

Catalog description

This lecture and discussion course explores the global history of political struggles over the production, circulation, and consumption of illicit drugs from the early modern period to the present. It surveys medical and social controversies over intoxicants; the political economy of drug trafficking; the ethnic and racial politics of policing and interdiction; cultures of drug use, addiction, and treatment; the interplay of 'narcostates,' cartels, and international organizations; the emergence of globalized networks of exchange, regulation, prohibition, and incarceration; and the racialization of legislation on drugs. Students who have previously enrolled in HISTORY 201A/301A, The Global Drug Wars, should not enroll in this course.