Drug Enforcement Administration

If some of the teen-agers who can be found hanging out at Washington-area malls ever are tempted to use drugs, they would be well advised to spend a few minutes at the new Drug Enforcement Administration Museum. The museum, located in the lobby of DEA headquarters in Arlington, Va., seeks to "document the perils of the drug culture." It also aims to "explain the past successes of federal drug law enforcement and the current challenges facing the United States." It is, in fact, the first American museum to focus on drug abuse.

Anyone who grew up thinking that drug use in America began in the era of Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin would find the museum's display on the pervasiveness of drugs in our history to be a real eye-opener. Indeed, notes museum director Sean Fearns, "Our first display, a photomontage of a 1930s drugstore, shows us how far we've come from viewing illicit drugs as wonder drugs to now understanding their dramatic impact." In that display, we learned that Bayer heroin bottles were once sold as an over-the-counter product, and until 1903, Coca-Cola contained cocaine.

Presented in chronological order, the museum exhibits focus on the following eras: America's First Drug Epidemic (1850-1914), Enforcing New Drug Laws (1919-1950s), Rise of the Modern Drug Culture (1960s and 1970s), and Return of Cocaine and the Rise of Cartels (1970s and 1980s). A staff of 12 retired DEA agents volunteer as tour guides.

The DEA museum displays items from the darker recesses of the American attic: a steel-reinforced door from a crack house; various drug paraphernalia and booby traps placed in marijuana fields; and a customized Harley Davidson seized from the drug-running Salem, Mass., Hell's Angels. Videos show reformed addicts telling their stories and DEA agents practicing raiding an illicit drug laboratory.

As sobering as the exhibits about the current national drug problem are, a visitor leaves the museum thankful that we have evolved from the period 21 years ago when one in 10 adult Americans used drugs and, as a photograph shows, when drug paraphernalia was legally and brazenly sold from a kiosk on the corner of Connecticut Avenue and K Street in downtown Washington.

Drug Enforcement Administration
Tours on weekdays by appointment only. Groups welcome.
700 Army-Navy Drive Arlington, Va.
(Pentagon City subway stop)
For reservations call (202) 307-3463
www.usdoj.gov/dea