cannabisnews.com: Fascinating and Deadly--Drugs in U.S. 





Fascinating and Deadly--Drugs in U.S. 
Posted by FoM on August 03, 1999 at 06:03:18 PT
By Blair Golson, Times Staff Writer
Source: LA Times
WASHINGTON--Only a select few have ever seen the green platform shoes that an undercover federal agent wore to help him infiltrate Detroit's drug-and-disco scene in the 1970s. 
And it's likely that many baby boomers have forgotten about the creativity their generation used to craft mayonnaise bottles into bongs.   But hipsters looking to reminisce, parents hoping to educate and tourists eager to complete their Washington checklists now can tour the Drug Enforcement Administration museum and visitor's center, a tribute to America's schizophrenic relationship with drugs and those who have worked to keep them from us.   The museum opened in May and occupies a classroom-sized enclave at DEA headquarters in Arlington, Va. The various artifacts, examples of drugs and text panels lining the walls chronicle 150 years of narcotics use, from San Francisco's opium dens to crack houses in the South Bronx.   The exhibits offer a sobering reminder that no generation since Abe Lincoln's has grown up entirely drug-free. "Kids can see that the drug problem isn't something that just started in the 1960s," said retired DEA agent Clarence Cook, who volunteers as a museum tour guide.   One exhibit juxtaposes three stores from different eras: The first, a neighborhood drugstore selling a heroin-laced syrup, hails from a time when most people just didn't know any better. The next, an early 1970s "head shop," flourished when recreational drug use was rampant among America's youth. Finally, standing in tomb-like contrast to the head shop, is a steel door through which crack cocaine was sold in the 1980s and '90s. Behind it is a picture of junkies wading through piles of empty vials in search of a hit.   Some of the museum's paraphernalia came from agents themselves. The DEA asked ex-employees to scour their attics for any relics they'd picked up during their careers. And what the agency couldn't obtain through donations, it paid for, spending $349,000 in federal funds to get the museum running.   A tour begins with pictures of innocuous-looking poppies, brought across the Pacific by Chinese immigrants headed for California's Gold Rush. The opium soon made its way east, initially in the form of painkillers that addicted thousands of Civil War soldiers.   With the production of narcotics going unchecked by the government, 1 in 200 Americans was addicted to some drug by 1900, according to one exhibit. On display are dozens of elixirs, all guaranteed to stave off various ailments, all containing morphine, heroin or cocaine.   A little girl's 1906 death certificate citing "poisoning from soothing syrups" signals America's gradual awakening to the horrors of addiction. That same year, the U.S. began enacting legislation against the most harmful drugs. And by 1930, the Bureau of Narcotics, the predecessor of the DEA, was established.   By that time, a less addictive narcotic was making its way into the mainstream. Marijuana would become the drug of choice on college campuses during the late 1960s and into the 1970s.   With the rise of the modern drug culture, the creativity of dealers' smuggling techniques rivaled that of boomers' smoking techniques. On display at the museum are a hollowed-out surfboard and a teddy bear that were used to ferry drugs across the U.S. border.   Pablo Escobar, the infamous head of one of Colombia's leading drug cartels, is featured in an exhibit on the cocaine epidemic of the 1980s. After years of evading U.S. attempts to bring him to justice, Escobar was shot to death by Colombian police in 1993.   To leave no lingering doubts about the museum's anti-drug message, the exhibit closes with photos of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix--rock idols felled by heroin.   Museum tours can be arranged by calling (202) 307-3463.August 3, 1999 Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/NATION/t000068906.html
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on August 03, 1999 at 12:20:37 PT:
Related Article
May 10, 1999San Francisco Chroniclehttp://www.sfgate.com/
Addiction Museum Joins Roster of Popular Sites!
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