This course examines the rhetoric of drugs and drug policy in the United States. We will consider the cultural narratives, symbols, and debates that have shaped public discourse around drugs in the U.S., especially contested definitions of what constitutes a "drug," cultural and public health debates over the appropriate social role of drugs, and the relationship of drug discourse to colonialism, capitalism, and religious practice. We will explore these questions through a range of topics including the origins of drug prohibition in the U.S., the commercial circulation of tobacco, coffee, and other legally tolerated drugs, the racial, economic, and carceral consequences of the "War on Drugs," D.A.R.E and drug education policy, the medicalization of drugs and the rise of pharmaceutical psychotherapy, and the opioid crisis. We will also explore social and political advocacy by drug users, conversations about harm reduction and decriminalization, legal and cultural debates surrounding drug use in religious practice, and the contemporary legalization of cannabis and psilocybin. Finally, following the classical Greek observation that rhetorical persuasion works like a drug, we will consider cultural assumptions about sobriety and intoxication and the relationship of speech and other media (e.g. social media, advertising, video games) to drugs and addiction in conversation with ethical debates about rhetoric. This course is appropriate for all class years.