"The Struggle of Mankind Against its Deadliest Foe": Themes of Counter-subversion in Anti-Narcotic Campaigns, 1920-1940

During the 1920s and 1930s, newspaper and magazine accounts of narcotics problems, and the propaganda of various anti-narcotic organizations used certain stock ideas and images to construct an intensely fearful public rhetoric about drugs. Authors routinely described drugs, users, and sellers as "evil," described sinister conspiracies to undermine American society and values, credited drugs with immense power to corrupt users, and called for complete eradication of the problem. That rhetoric became the standard template for American public discourse about drugs, and is still in use. Very similar themes and images, however, were used in earlier crusades against Masons, Catholics, and Mormons. This suggests that anti-drug discourse is linked to a larger American rhetorical tradition, one that stems from Protestant-Republican ideology and cultural concerns--fears of being owned or controlled, fears of anarchy, fears of loss of dynamism, fears of falling away from past virtue and promise. In casting drugs and drug users as a "Great American Enemy" reformers not only addressed the existing social problems posed by drug use, but attempted, through a culturally resonant rhetorical form, to provide their audience with explanations and rallying points, and help them define or recover a sense of cultural identity and purpose.