Origin Story - The War on Drugs: The smack of firm government

The War on Drugs: The smack of firm government

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12/12/22 • 68 min

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Origin Story

Drugs won the War on Drugs decades ago, so why are governments still squandering billions on this unwinnable battle? Where did the idea come from? Can we even agree on what drugs are? Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt delve into the tortuous evolution of the futile battle against narcotics. From morphine users Jules Verne and Bismarck and cocaine fan Sigmund Freud to the Opium Wars, the Red Scares, the Jazz Panic, Richard Nixon’s declaration of war on narcotics in 1971 up to Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no”, the War on Drugs becomes a justification for racism, a proxy assault on the ’60s – and an immovable block on evidence-based policy.

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Thank you to drugs expert Steve Rolles for his assistance with this episode.

“This is about as profound a policy failure as any you can find anywhere on Earth.” – Ian Dunt
“If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face-to-face with the monster Marijuana he would drop dead of fright.” – Harry J Anslinger, Federal Bureau of Narcotics director
“When they say ‘war on drugs’ what they mean is, war on some things we don’t like.” – Ian Dunt
“By accident or design, the drugs war had evolved into a race war.” – Mike Gray, author of Drug Crazy
“Drugs function like pornography or the military do with technology. They drive forward rapid change.” – Ian Dunt

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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Support Origin Story to get extra episodes and more at https://www.patreon.com/originstorypod

Thank you to drugs expert Steve Rolles for his assistance with this episode.

“This is about as profound a policy failure as any you can find anywhere on Earth.” – Ian Dunt
“If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face-to-face with the monster Marijuana he would drop dead of fright.” – Harry J Anslinger, Federal Bureau of Narcotics director
“When they say ‘war on drugs’ what they mean is, war on some things we don’t like.” – Ian Dunt
“By accident or design, the drugs war had evolved into a race war.” – Mike Gray, author of Drug Crazy
“Drugs function like pornography or the military do with technology. They drive forward rapid change.” – Ian Dunt

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Previous Episode

Fascism: The fraternity of violence

Few terms are thrown about as freely now as “Fascist” but what does the ultimate political condemnation really mean? Where did Fascism come from? Are all Fascists Nazis, and were the Nazis even Fascists themselves? From Mussolini and Nietszche to Adolf Hitler, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey delve into fascism’s primordial stew of violence, racism, antisemitism, mysticism, anti-intellectualism and bizarrely modern aesthetics. They discover a brutal, anti-rational creed that is equally obsessed with futurist technology and ancient myth – and which inevitably drives itself towards war.

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“Fascists are inferior people who believe it when told they are superior.” – Kurt Vonnegut
“Except in struggle there is no more beauty. No work without an aggressive character can be a masterpiece.” – Filippo Tomasso Marinetti
“The fist is the synthesis of our theory.” – Italian fascist, 1920
“Germans would even dream of the state interfering in their lives. The Nazis had infiltrated even their sleep.” – Ian
“You can’t have a violent rebirth without the sense that you’ve been oppressed and put upon.” – Dorian

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Next Episode

Freedom of Speech: Censors working overtime

“We surely live in the stupidest possible era of debate about free speech,” says Ian Dunt. When a key arbiter of free expression is the smirking tech bro who owns Twitter, he might be right. How did the right to express yourself freely get hijacked by reactionaries? Are progressives really a threat to freedom of speech?

Dorian Lynskey and Ian delve back in time from the printing press and its early “paper bullets” via the surprisingly racy life of John Stuart Mill right up to the First Amendment of the US Constitution and our current panics over woke, hate speech and cancel culture. How did shouting “free speech” become an instant way to shut down debate?

Support Origin Story to get extra episodes and more at https://www.patreon.com/originstorypod

“If somebody tries to make their point about freedom of speech by using a cartoon on the internet, they’ve probably simplified it a bit.” – Dorian Lynskey
“There is a choice not between order and liberty, it is between liberty with order and anarchy without either.” – Justice Robert H Jackson
“The whole story of free speech is the story of doubt.” – Ian Dunt

Reading List

From Ian

Jacob Mchangama – Free Speech: A Global History From Socrates To Social Media

John Rees – The Leveller Revolution

John Stuart Milll – On Liberty

The Complete Works Of Harriet Taylor Mill – Editor Jo Ellen Jacobs

Richard Reeve – John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand

From Dorian

Anthony Lewis — Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment

Suzanne Nossel — Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All

Nat Hentoff – Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other

Stanley Fish — There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech