FASCINATING AND DEADLY--DRUGS IN U.S.

WASHINGTON--Only a select few have ever seen the green platform shoes that
an undercover federal agent wore to help him infiltrate Detroit's
drug-and-disco scene in the 1970s.

And it's likely that many baby boomers have forgotten about the creativity
their generation used to craft mayonnaise bottles into bongs.

But hipsters looking to reminisce, parents hoping to educate and tourists
eager to complete their Washington checklists now can tour the Drug
Enforcement Administration museum and visitor's center, a tribute to
America's schizophrenic relationship with drugs and those who have worked
to keep them from us.

The museum opened in May and occupies a classroom-sized enclave at DEA
headquarters in Arlington, Va. The various artifacts, examples of drugs and
text panels lining the walls chronicle 150 years of narcotics use, from San
Francisco's opium dens to crack houses in the South Bronx.

The exhibits offer a sobering reminder that no generation since Abe
Lincoln's has grown up entirely drug-free. "Kids can see that the drug
problem isn't something that just started in the 1960s," said retired DEA
agent Clarence Cook, who volunteers as a museum tour guide.

One exhibit juxtaposes three stores from different eras: The first, a
neighborhood drugstore selling a heroin-laced syrup, hails from a time when
most people just didn't know any better. The next, an early 1970s "head
shop," flourished when recreational drug use was rampant among America's
youth.
Finally, standing in tomb-like contrast to the head shop, is a steel door
through which crack cocaine was sold in the 1980s and '90s. Behind it is a
picture of junkies wading through piles of empty vials in search of a hit.

Some of the museum's paraphernalia came from agents themselves. The DEA
asked ex-employees to scour their attics for any relics they'd picked up
during their careers. And what the agency couldn't obtain through
donations, it paid for, spending $349,000 in federal funds to get the
museum running.

A tour begins with pictures of innocuous-looking poppies, brought across
the Pacific by Chinese immigrants headed for California's Gold Rush. The
opium soon made its way east, initially in the form of painkillers that
addicted thousands of Civil War soldiers.

With the production of narcotics going unchecked by the government, 1 in
200 Americans was addicted to some drug by 1900, according to one exhibit.
On display are dozens of elixirs, all guaranteed to stave off various
ailments, all containing morphine, heroin or cocaine.

A little girl's 1906 death certificate citing "poisoning from soothing
syrups" signals America's gradual awakening to the horrors of addiction.
That same year, the U.S. began enacting legislation against the most
harmful drugs. And by 1930, the Bureau of Narcotics, the predecessor of the
DEA, was established.

By that time, a less addictive narcotic was making its way into the
mainstream. Marijuana would become the drug of choice on college campuses
during the late 1960s and into the 1970s.

With the rise of the modern drug culture, the creativity of dealers'
smuggling techniques rivaled that of boomers' smoking techniques. On
display at the museum are a hollowed-out surfboard and a teddy bear that
were used to ferry drugs across the U.S. border.

Pablo Escobar, the infamous head of one of Colombia's leading drug cartels,
is featured in an exhibit on the cocaine epidemic of the 1980s. After years
of evading U.S. attempts to bring him to justice, Escobar was shot to death
by Colombian police in 1993.

To leave no lingering doubts about the museum's anti-drug message, the
exhibit closes with photos of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix--rock idols
felled by heroin.

Museum tours can be arranged by calling (202) 307-3463.