HIS 563SEM - The Politics of Drugs in the United States

In the early 21st century experts describe addiction as a chronic, relapsing brain disease?a timeless interaction between drug pharmacology and human neurobiology. Based on this belief America has invested vast resources into addressing addiction at an individual level through medical treatment. Yet if the biology of addiction does not change over time, everything else about it does: how experts define its nature and boundaries; who is understood to suffer from it and what their experiences are; and how social and political resources are mobilized in response to it. Addiction is sometimes a crime, and sometimes a disease. It is sometimes believed to be rare, and sometimes feared as epidemic. It has been used as justification for a range of different, indeed opposing, political projects from prohibition to harm reduction. Credits: 3