Drugs Across Cultures
Was going through my Drugs Across Cultures lecture notes, and found this interesting. Wanted to share it all with ya. Would love to start a conversation…
- Refuting the myth that drugs are chiefly defined and determined by their pharmacological properties: look how medical science has changed its classification of drugs over the years.
- Example of caffeine.
- Example of tea
- Example of opiates
- Example of cannabis from Himmelstein (“From Killer Weed to Drop-Out Drug”)
- The divide between legality and illegality is socially and historically determined, not based in some neutral, objective ranking of the dangers of drugs. (Marijuana is less addictive than alcohol, caffeine, or nicotine; cigarettes are implicated in more deaths than every other legal AND illegal drug combined.)
- So this class will be looking a lot at the social context surrounding drug classification and use, and by looking historically at how this changes over time, we can start to really appreciate that drugs and their effect on individuals can only be fully understood by taking into account the particular social, cultural, political, and economic contexts, in addition to their pharmacological properties.
