Editor’s Note: Points continues its series of interviews with authors from the latest issue of ADHS’s journal Social History of Alcohol and Drugs (vol. 34, no. 2; Fall 2020), published by the University of Chicago Press. Today we feature Dr. Richard Del Rio, a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow within the Department of Behavioral Science and Social Medicine at the Florida State University College of Medicine. You can see his article here. Contact the University of Chicago Press to subscribe to the journal or request access to this article, or any other article from SHAD’s history.
Tell readers a little bit about yourself
Yikes! In my view you’re starting with the hardest part of this interview. In the professional sense, I am a historian trained in the social history of the United States and the histories of Latinx and African American peoples. My academic specialty and research focus is to contribute to these fields of history through the stories of pharmaceuticals and drugs. In case you’re asking for something a little more personal, I’ll just mention that I’m a lover of Caribbean culture, admirer of martial arts, enjoy building community/fellowship, and always try to learn from others. And just in case there are any gamers checking this interview, when I have the time for it (and I rarely do), I really enjoy a competitive bout of Super Smash Bros.!
What got you interested in drugs (and their history)?
Scholars across academic disciplines have recognized the pervasive influence of the United States’ policy regime known as the “War on Drugs” in the late twentieth century. Along wIth the more recent “War on Terror,” the War on Drugs has served as an important pretext for American foreign interventions and international ambitions. Domestically, I think the broad public calls for reforms to our drug laws and the complete legalization of cannabis highlight the recognition that the War on Drug’s impact on the public’s health and wealth was mostly damaging. Its emphasis on punishment and supply side controls contributed to the militarization of police, the alienation of the citizens they serve, and the controversial growth of publicly traded corrections companies. There is a growing recognition that we need some new ideas about how to approach or shape the public’s consumption of strong, potentially addictive, psychoactive drugs. I am part of a generation of historians in my field who have been working to understand “how did things get so bad in the first place?”