Drugs in the classroom: A historical approach to drug education

This article suggests various techniques and strategies for integrating historical research methods into the drug education classroom. While most criminal justice programs offer courses on drug education, instruction has typically concentrated on policy issues. With little historical perspective on the roots of the drug problem, students are too often left with a one-dimensional perspective: that all illegal drug use should be criminalized. Like many recent historical events, the roots of the drug problem remain a distant abstraction to the current generation of criminal justice students. A historical approach to this subject using historiographic methods can lead to a better understanding of the cyclic nature of the U. S. drug problem and policies over the past century.