Reddit reviews We Sell Drugs: The Alchemy of US Empire (American Crossroads)

i listened to an interesting podcast episode recently. the show is Who Makes Cents?: A History of Capitalism and the episode guest was Susanna Reiss, a professor at Univ of Hawaii being interviewed about a book she published in 2014. despite the crudeness of this meme, there's actually a lot to unpack behind the so-called War On Drugs that started decades before the 60s, during WW2 actually, and U.S. pharmaceutical companies (in competition with German and Japanese pharmaceutical companies) were active participants in the process of defining U.S. drug policy, with control of the drug trade being recognized by government institutions as a critical piece of "economic warfare".

the podcast, see episode 7 it's free

the book:

We Sell Drugs: The Alchemy of US Empire

Description:
>*This history of US-led international drug control provides new perspectives on the economic, ideological, and political foundations of a Cold War American empire. US officials assumed the helm of international drug control after World War II at a moment of unprecedented geopolitical influence embodied in the growing economic clout of its pharmaceutical industry.

>We Sell Drugs is a study grounded in the transnational geography and political economy of the coca-leaf and coca-derived commodities market stretching from Peru and Bolivia into the United States. More than a narrow biography of one famous plant and its equally famous derivative products—Coca-Cola and cocaine—this book situates these commodities within the larger landscape of drug production and consumption. Examining efforts to control the circuits through which coca traveled, Suzanna Reiss provides a geographic and legal basis for considering the historical construction of designations of legality and illegality.

>The book also argues that the legal status of any given drug is largely premised on who grew, manufactured, distributed, and consumed it and not on the qualities of the drug itself. Drug control is a powerful tool for ordering international trade, national economies, and society’s habits and daily lives.

>In a historical landscape animated by struggles over political economy, national autonomy, hegemony, and racial equality, We Sell Drugs insists on the socio-historical underpinnings of designations of legality to explore how drug control became a major weapon in asserting control of domestic and international affairs.

Top review:
>Reiss covers the hyphen in the US "War on Drugs," 1940-1960. This is the period between the initial legislating of US drug attitudes, policies, and laws, 1900-1940, and the full-blown, billion-dollar-a-day "War on Drugs," 1970-present. Needless to say, this period is dominated by World War II. Rapid transformation of the existing regulations and market was imperative to supply escalating US and Allied demand for all drugs, including cocaine, and, equally important, to deny the Axis powers these same drugs. "Fortunately," this was all accomplished so as to expand the international reach of US drug attitudes, policies, and laws; and, equally important, to expand the competitive advantages of US pharmaceutical firms during the Cold War and beyond.
Within this 1940-1960 period, Reiss focuses almost exclusively on the political economy of coca leaves and cocaine, Coca-Cola, US relations with Peru and Bolivia, and the rise of the synthetic drug industry during and after World War II. She also makes clear how the pre-World War II regulatory and market regime were refined and expanded internationally so as to provide a "firm" basis for the "War on Drugs" after Nixon declared it in 1969.
The principal criticism of We Sell Drugs is that it is, perhaps, too ambitious. It tries to show how legal and illegal drugs were important aspects of large swaths of the US and international political economy, 1940-1960. While true, the information and the relationships are, at times, overwhelming.

I highly recommended Reiss' book: We Sell Drugs https://www.amazon.com/We-Sell-Drugs-American-Crossroads/dp/0520280784

Reiss discusses the life and works of Harry J. Aslinger who was the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The United States spoke out under Aslinger against drug use and worked with groups that saw drugs and drinking as evils but their motive was to actually control the drug supply for wartime pain management.

Aslinger and others around him would push for criminlization of drug use, even in other countries. They discovered that the natives in South America would chew the coca leaves (which would not get them high but provide them with vital nutrients they were not getting elsewhere, as well as being a cultural thing. The US and Aslinger pushed to ban this custom.

The US would then collect the raw product, literally stamp "Made in the US" on it and distribute it to allies for medical use. People who gained these drugs illegally were prosecuted (Aslinger told people to focus on lower-class towns, especially ones with minorities over the white upper-class ones.)

Their use became illegal as medical technology advanced. The high addiction rate and overall effect the drugs had had a large part in their becoming illegal as well.

Hope this has helped. Let me know if you have any further questions.