Professor Rod Phillips attended the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Washington, DC, in early January. He participated in a panel titled, “Drugs in the classroom. What should we tell students about alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and addictive digital technologies in history — and in their own lives?”
The panel and the audience shared experiences teaching courses on the history of various drugs. Phillips, who teaches a course at Carleton on the history of alcohol, talked about the teaching opportunities afforded by the legalization of cannabis in Canada in 2018. The issues raised — including the regulation of production, distribution, and consumption, as well as the personal and social implications — parallel historic debates about alcohol. There was also a discussion of the usefulness of teaching courses under the umbrella concept of addiction.