There’s a 2,500-square-foot office in Arlington that’s almost a drug lord’s haven: It houses authentic Drug Enforcement Administration badges, diamond-encrusted handguns and more drug paraphernalia than you can find at a head shop.

Do the authorities know about this place? Actually, they do — which is why it falls short of being every criminal’s fantasy. The building houses the DEA Museum & Visitors Center, the only museum in the nation dedicated to the history of drugs, drug abuse and drug enforcement. Exhibits cover how illegal drugs have impacted society. They touch on opium and heroin trends of the 1930s and 1940s, the Mafia’s role in drug trafficking, psychedelic drugs of the 1960s, and today’s problem with methamphetamines and club drugs such as ecstasy.

"We want to show the history," says museum director Sean Fearns. "These are things that actually happened." While most people think problems with illegal drugs started in the 1930s, America’s drug problem dates to the 1800s. Of course, it has escalated since then. In 1900, one in every 200 Americans was addicted to drugs, Fearns says. In 1979, one in nine people was an addict.

Since opening in May 1999, the museum has had about 5,000 visitors. Admission is free, although visitors must call ahead to make an appointment. Fearns hopes that eventually the museum will stir enough interest to be open full time with walk-ins, just like the Smithsonian.

When you first enter the building, the hall is lined with recreated storefronts from the ’30s and ’40s, where customers were actually able to purchase such products as Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Cough Syrup — active ingredient: opium — and Bayer-Heroin. The latter wasn’t as pure as the heroin found on the streets today, but it was absolutely habit forming, Fearns says. Did this Bayer-Heroin actually work as the cure-all it claimed to be? "Oh yeah," Fearns says, "I think people felt really good with it."

Fearns points out, though, that the museum in no way glorifies the illegal drug industry or drug use. The museum is an interesting place to learn the facts about a serious national problem, while maybe opening the door for parents to talk with their children about drugs.

Of course, the whole concept does leave one wondering: What do they sell at the gift shop?

For more information or to make an appointment, visit the Drug Enforcement Administration's Web site.