The History of Drugs in Society explores the history of different substances and how we’ve lived alongside and interacted with them.This season, we’re going to look at opium in one of three ways: opium as a medicine, opium as a commodity that is traded, and opium as a drug that is consumed and people become addicted to. Each episode will have one of these three as the primary focus. We will start with the first signs of the opium poppy through the current opioid crisis in America and the major issues surrounding opioids globally.
Episodes
Tuesday Jun 30, 2020
Tuesday Jun 30, 2020
This week’s ep features Nidia Olivera, who is a professor at the National School of Anthropology teaching history and drug history specifically. She is also a current PhD candidate at the Mora Institute, where she is looking at the ancient and modern history of psychoactive substances and drug policies in Mexico.
We talked about the history of drug prohibition in Mexico from the time the Spanish arrived through the 1950’s. We covered a wide swath of history and we couldn’t cover everything, so I’m including some additional resources below. Feel free to reach out on @DrugsHistory or on email, drugshistory@gmail.com.
Nidia’s suggested resources:
https://chacruna.net/why-continue-calling-cannabis/
https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/1940-the-year-mexico-legalised-drugs/
https://researchguides.library.wisc.edu/c.php?g=560513&p=3904772
Some others:
If you like Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast, check out season 9. A Narco History is a short book that gives a good high level political history. Dawn Paley’s Drug War Capitalism provides an interesting theory in terms of the economic role of deciding specific drug policies.
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