Drug Studies Minor Course Descriptions
Anthropology 336 – Drugs, Culture and Society
(core course in minor, offered once a year, usually in the Fall semester)
Professors: Christine Eber
Description: This course strives to help students think critically and complexly about humans’ relationships to drugs. The course takes an anthropological perspective which involves exploring the history of drug use cross-culturally and the contemporary experiences of diverse groups of people with drugs. Substances we will study include coca, coffee, cocaine, peyote, alcohol, among others. Although we will study druguse and abuse in diverse cultures, we will pay special attention to the use andabuse of drugs in North America and to the relationship of drug use to forms ofstructural violence, including racism, sexism, and poverty. Themes we will cover include: drug use in communal rituals; drugs in contexts of colonization andmodernization; drugs and gender; drugs in the global economy; drug traffickingon the U.S./Mexico border; effects on individuals and families of drug abuse;and treatment of people with substance abuse problems.
Chemical Engineering 395G – Brewing, Society and Science
(offered once each academic year, but not in Summers)
Professor: Stuart Munson-McGee
Description: The objective of this course is to provide undergraduate students with a broad perspective of the brewing industry as well as technical knowledge about the brewing process. Topics included in this course will include: the history of brewing and the interrelationships between societal attitudes, technology, and cultural preferences for beer; beer styles and evaluation techniques; ingredients used in beer; brewing unit operations technology; brewing unit operations science; engineering in the brewery; home brewing; and the societal and health issues related to beer and alcohol. Students must be at least 21 years of age by the first day of instruction of the semester to enroll in this course.
Criminal Justice 432 - Issues in CJ: Global Perspectives on Youth and Drugs
(offered once each semester on-line. Students need to obtain permission from the instructor to take this course as it is typically open only to CJ majors.)
Professor: Marija Dimitrijevic
Description: This course seeks to enable students to think critically, empathetically and complexly about drug use among teenagers in different cultures and countries. This course is designed to give students a more comprehensive understanding of drugs and their influences among young people. We will pay attention to uses and abuses of drugs in the American-Indian, African-American, and European communities among young people.Themes we will cover include: drugs and the internet; legal ages for alcohol purchases or consumption and legalization of illegal drugs around the world;the world situation with regard to drug abuse with particular reference to children and youth; the effects of alcohol and tobacco advertising on adolescents; and youth and drugs in a black community, and the destruction of some communities.
Criminal Justice 432 - Issues in CJ: Global Drug Use and Policy
(offered annually online; Drug Studies Minor students are welcome to enroll, but these students must obtain permission from the instructor, as the course is typically restricted to CJ majors)
Professor: Marija Dimitrijevic
Description: The class will cover drug controversies; theories and patterns of drug use; illegal drugs and policies regulating drug use; policies in other countries and comparison to USApolicies; and influences of U.S. policies on other nations' policies.
Government 322 - Border Security Policy
(offered once during a three semester period)
Professor: Jason Ackelson
Description: This course offers a broad analysis of contemporary international border security. Increasingly, new forms of control, surveillance, and tracking are being employed at air, land, and sea boundaries in an attempt to prevent terrorist incursions into the U.S. Security at borders, however, is not solely directed at terrorists; illegal narcotics and migrants are also defined as security threats. But security need not be thought of in such narrow and traditional terms. Using a wide definition of the concept of security, we will explore other faces of current security challenges within the broader context of U.S.-Mexico border politics, including evaluations of physical, social, human, and economic security and thus issues of poverty, violence, and development.
Government 420 – Special Topics in Public Policy: Drug Policy
(offered next in Spring 2009)
Professor: Russ Winn
Description: This course is an overview of the government’s attempt at controlling drug use in American society. The course focuses on a historical review of the different policies aimed at controlling drug use, their development, how they were implemented and the results of these policy initiatives. We explore how successful different policy instruments (regulation, incentives, taxing, education, etc.) have been in control personal behavior. The course also reviews the impact that drug policies have had on law enforcement, corrections, and treatment agencies within the executive branch. In addition, the course explores how the judiciary has shaped drug policy and how drug policy has shaped judicial interpretation of constitutional rights.
Health Sciences 300 – Drugs and Behavior
(offered each semester)
Professor: Satya Rao
Description: This course is a multi-dimensional approach to drugs in society and pharmacology, cultural, legal applications and psychosocial influences on the individual and the environment.
Health Sciences 484 – Alcohol and Drug Prevention and Control
(offered once each academic year)
Professor: Satya Rao
Description: This course focuses on a major public health issue with specific relevance to border communities, namely alcohol and druguse and abuse. In addition, the course devotes extensive time on issues related to the history of alcohol and other drug use in the United States, mental health, education, prevention, and intervention efforts, policy, advocacy, and social issues associated with the use of alcohol and other drugs.
Psychology 303 – Community Psychology
(offered each Fall semester)
Professor: Lausanne Renfro-Fernandez
Description: This course examines the manner in which social forces within a community shape the definition, treatment, and prevention of social issues.Topics to be discussed include the history, principles and orienting concepts of community psychology, values, environment, diversity, social change, stress, and prevention, promotion, and implementation of programs that address social issues. Students will gain an understanding of how a community perspective changes the way people typically view and approach psychological difficulties and social issues. The course involves developing a mock intervention program for Las Cruces. Students in the Drugs Studies Minor will be required to focus on a drug-related problem in Las Cruces.
Psychology 325 – Health Psychology
(offered once each academic year)
Professor: Lausanne Renfro-Fernandez
Description: This course examines how biological, psychological and social factors interact with and affect different areas within health psychology. Topics to be discussed include the promotion of good health and prevention of illness, the recovery, rehabilitation, and psychosocial adjustment that correspond with health problems, and the role of stress and coping in illness. Students will gain an understanding of the important role that psychology plays within the health care system.