actually calls the opioid epidemic to flood the communities with drugs and if we don't talk about that and trump voters racism and that the elites are already winning the past few decades t. see all the book tv and c-span products available. >> good afternoon. i am the i am the director of the washington institute for international public affairs. i am so delighted to be here today to celebrate killer hide, a fantastic new book by peter andreas. let me just say as a student of chinese affairs i hardly need to be told about the importance of the relationship between drugs and war. of course i know the intensity

of feelings in china about the century of humiliation that began with the opium war. but at the same time, it is easy for a lot of people including myself to think of something like the i opium war as an anomy or something very particular to a very particular time and place, i have to say i'm guilty of thinking about the opium war that way. but great scholarships, truly great scholarships like killer hi, a lot of the work done at the washington institute forces us, me too see the world in a totally new way. this book has forced me and i think it's forced all readers to focus on the internal and incredibly expensive relationship between drugs and war. that relationship extends from work conducted by people who are often on a form of drug of some

kind of psychoactive substance, it extends to wars and conquest of drugs or the raw materials forr drugs, it extends to wars for markets and for outlets for drugs and of course were all familiar with wars against drugs. as peter argue so effectively, this phenomenon in interaction between psychoactive substances and conflict is least throughout history and right up to the present. peter makes a number of interesting conclusions and raise a number of questions. i think we will have an opportunity with the fantastic panel to dive into the questions which will emphasize this entirely new lens that peter gives us to see the world. let me explain how we will proceed, i will ask peter too come up and speak for ten minutes or so about the book and then i will ask her panelist to

comment for ten minutes or so each on the book and then we will open it up to questions and answers. if you will let me briefly introduce peter in her panelist. peter andreas is a professor of international studies at the washington institute and the department of political science. he's the author, co-author of 11 books including killer hi and also the 2013 book smuggler nation,io how illicit trade made america relevant today as we live in a world of trade friction and piracy and make claims about a variety of countries, illicitnd activities. next to speak will be chris chrs chavers, many of you are all familiar with his work, am a big fan. he's worked at the new york times since 1999, his career as a foreign correspondent is

conflict regions, spanning afghanistan, iraq, palestinian, chechnya, libya, syria among others, he also served as a marine corps infantryman and a combat veteran from the first persian gulf war. next to speak will be angelica drawn martinez, the political science at massachusetts. she is a 2013 phd recipient from brown and she is a noted expert, latin american and comparative politics but with a particular emphasis on organized crime and criminality, illicit market and the relationship between state actors and nonstate actors, often nonstate actors, she's the author of the award-winning 2018 book the politics of drug violence, criminal cops and politicians in columbia and mexico, that was from oxford university press. and stephen kinzer well known to everybody here, the senior

fellow of the washington institute and award-winning journalist over the course of his career covered more than 50 countries on five continents. he spent more than 20 years working for the new york times as a foreign correspondent bureau chief and among his numerous claim books include the 2019 volume poison are in chief, the cia search for my control, obviously topical for the discussion today. with that, let me turn the microphone over to peter andreas. [applause] >> thank you all for coming. if you are here because you think this is about the need for tv, dvds, killer high, sorry to disappoint you, i'm sure the dvd has and will also my book, the

genre for that listed on amazon is horror/comedy. [laughter] so my book is the fully horror, there's not a lot of comedy in it. in the title was not my selection, might voice was originally subtitle, the history of war in six drugs, let me just give you a few highlights of the book. what i try to do in the mere 300 some pages, is retail the history of warfare or the lens of drugs and retail the history of drugs through the lens of war. and hopefully for those of you who end up reading the book you will not quite think of war in the same way and you won't quite think of drugs in the sameay wa. in fact i like to give it to that drugs and war group together and over time became quite addicted to each other. one liner would be drugs made

war and war made drugs. these two things tend to be treated quite separately and the literatures on more and what i do is systematically try to tie them together across time, across place and across psychoactive substance. the motivation for the book was not history, it was to bring history into a policy debate that suffers from a historical amnesia, a debate about the so-called nexus between drugs and conflict. we think about narco terrorism and clubby again,is afghanistan. but look at this issue from a much deeper historical, going back not just years and decades butt in centuries, the first tre

narco state, probablyob great britain, in fact it is probably the first narco empire if you think about the sheer importance of alcohol taxes, the importance of the tea tray, powerful drug, i'm addicted to it, it's called nicotine -- calf and, not nicotine, i don't touch the stuff. or the importance of the opioid trade. for the rise of britain as the maritime. in fact narco insurgents, yes it is the taliban, it was also george washington. why do i say george washington, that conflict depended on revenue generated by tobacco. in fact alone from france based on tobacco revenue i had to lea and the brits were so upset, they bring the tobacco fields them.er they found them.

including tobacco fields owned by thomas jefferson. what i try to do in the book is systematically unravel interrogate the relationship between drugs and were in they claim there is five relationships, what is war on drugs combating drug use in wartime, not just combat and but also on the homefront as well, drug use by civilians coping with wartime. obviously war is stressful work, no surprise that drugs help soldiers cope, they help them celebrate victories and prepare for battle and give them liquid courage after all. i also talk about war through drugs, totally different of war and war. that ranges from tobacco taxes to cocaine and opium from

illicit drugs. natural to semi thin that it to fully synthetic drugs. most benign to psychoactive substances. there is war for drugs which is distinct from the first two, it is actually gone to war over drug markets and as a mention the most famous case are the opium wars of the mid-19th century where britain forced opium onto china for the bail of a gun. but it goes all the way up to the present if we think about what is going on in mexico today, more people have died in mexico since late 2006 then have died in iraq and afghanistan combined. drug violence that although security analyst are reluctant to call it war, if you look at

the sheer number of casualties, if you look at how well armed the perpetrators are using military grade equipment, actually the actors themselves are military elite trained in one case u.s. trained antidrug force trained into a drug hit squad for drug trafficking organizations and when you think about the state itself white deployed its military in a frontline world finding drugs, it is essentially an antidrug force at this point, and then he say is not just mexico but columbia as some extent and result of some extent, even the united states until the 1980s has loosened which is a restricted the use of the u.s. military from law enforcement purposes. now very much embedded in the war on drugs. at the border and beyond and perforation of militarized policing, swat teams were

invented before the war on drugs that really took off think to the war on drugs, using military technology and military personnel and approaches to fighting a substance. >> there is a war against drugs which is closely related but distinct for war against drugs, started as a metaphor, nixon declared war against drugs, he did not send in troops to fight drugs, but since the 1980s it is become progressively more militarized so we can call it an outright war. last but not least, this is probably the research in the book that surprised me, drugs after war, how much war itself left a lasting legacy with regulation, drug taste have been

fundamentally altered thanks to wars in ways we do not give war credit for. just to give you a few examples. why are we coffee drinking then a tea drinking nation. because we won the american revolution, the brits went on with t, we turn to coffee. we not only turn to coffee, we turn to whiskey and then heroin was the drug of choice produced in rhode island which kept most of rhode island going including massachusetts, and after the american revolution and whiskey became the beverage of choice which was a national drink, no longer needed imports, and to turn against the british drink tea. the very taste that we take for granted are actually a result of war, the very criminalization of

cocaine is a product of world war ii, very few people remember that cocaine was produced by japanese pharmaceutical companies in the destruction of those fields in the pharmaceutical as part of a victory in world war ii, they turned against cocaine much earlier and only of japan that they were able to globalize its preference for cocaine prohibition, it was one of the biggest losers of world war ii. you legal cocaine was arguably one of the biggest winners. there is a five relationships, i want to tell you a little bit that i have the six key drugs, i mentioned some of them, the oldest most multipurpose and

double edged drug is alcohol. it goes back to beer and wine and then the distilling revolution did revolutionize things. think about why france is the world's most famous wine producing region in the world, the conquest is what brought wine to france, barty was set up as a port by the romans and after the romans retreated and pushed back. the revolution was absolutely essential to the conquest of the new world, think about the importance of the cleanser and westward expansion. in fact, alcohol became so important that it was actually

rationed on both sides of the american revolution. after the revolution whiskey became part of the u.s. military rations in fact the british believe it or not had more russians until the early 1970s on their naval ships. tobacco arrives much later than tobacco but once it arrives it's equally potent but the downsides of alcohol, basically you can raise a lot of revenue but you might have a drink military. they were able to finance the largest army in europe with vodka revenue but the soldiers were drunk, tobacco is ideal were drug, highly affordable and fights anxiety and boredom, relieves -- highly taxable and does not impede performance even

if it might eventually kill you. the globalization of tobacco is also the spread of warfare, soldiers global life warfare and there's a motive consumption closely influence. why do we turn away from pipes to cigars and cigarettes to increasingly portable easily to produce and to move an intimate story of war. in fact, cigarettes by the time world war ii came around where the most valued russian and soldier rations. third, caffeine, drug of choice, i'm completely addicted to the stuff, it's the most world popular psychoactive sub luncheon substance but certainly

in relationship to war, arguably stimulated in expansion, i meant to the british empire of tea. but then we also have the rise of caffeinated soldiers, in the case of the civil war, coffee is mentioned in soldier diaries more often than gun, cannon or rifle. coffee is an essential ingredient to keep soldiers going. instant coffee was an instant hit on the battlefield in world war ii and outlived world war ii. the coffee break was actually introduced for defense workers during world war ii and outlived world war ii and institutionalized in the workplace in the 1950s. . . .

there is no way japan in the late 1930s could fund the occupation without narcotics. while on drugs since speed is the essence of war he didn't mean them that means that he would be pretty impressed how important amphetamines were to keep soldiers on many sites going during world war ii. and last but not least, cocaine

the extra in case of war which i've already said a few things about. i will stop there and turn things over to chris. [applause] >> i'm going to open with compliments if you look at my coffee all the way through, you can tell that i was engaged when i get to the end of the book and i've used it to ink pens it is a good sign it's a good book. i was lucky he got me a copy over christmas and i spent the holidays with it. if a work of history as you just heard and it is an act of making vapors into sometimes divergent sources to hear to an understanding and narratives that are relatable and analysis that can make you as you said reimagine the world and in this

case the world of the war. i don't want to talk about history at least not distant history. i want to talk more about now and more recent observations since the persian gulf war of 90 and 91 and the so-called global war on terror since 2001. are there any recent veterans in the room? i will welcome you to comment afterwards. peter talks about in the book to place various substances have on the battlefield and the era that we would now have changed a bit

from modern conventional and the military commands have become in some cases politically sensitive that some of the long-standing battlefields are prohibited from alcohol most notable for a variety of reasons although the military is a heavy user of the personal level of alcohol at the individual level and at the unit level. i'm not going to call his nonexistent but it's almost invisible and quiet where to see it on the battlefield. some of this is because of the war as we've had them since 2001 and since the gulf war in fact often played out on the islamic populations. and to make the social faux pas.

in one case they hope to get along with the population better than what they otherwise might. you won't see much of it. when i was in the 80s and '90s i was in the marine infantry. it was a very obvious as most everyone here has some sort of relationship with alcohol that it was hard to hide the fall of the use of the orders. they literally locked the doors and said i can't get my snake and pulled out a bottle and everyone got a couple of shots and that was it in a ten month deployment. there wasn't much alcohol they are at all.

but there are many other drugs out there and there is a deep hypocrisy that they would see in how the military relief with drugs in their own forces and the attempt later in the administration it was after a sailor had been smoking pot in a hangar deck and it caused a small fire and activate a sprinkler system which sprayed salt water on some of the aircraft and it was considered perhaps the culprit in one of the aircraft failures on the nation. whether the stories are -- as a

result we have gone through a service coming out of vietnam using marijuana very heavily they now have drug testing routine analysis sometimes randomized they would take a unit and pull numbers out of a hat you have to return to your analysis today and it wasn't quite zero tolerance. in our force in the western forces when you go to the battlefields now and you will find the allies may be heavily using. some of the things i saw in

afghanistan qualify as comedy. the text alongside each other with americans or western forces and the afghan part is on the other and the americans would all be dipping copenhagen which is a tobacc tobacco stuff that basically tastes like how -- tastes like cow shit. you don't have to fumble with matches and so it is immensely popular. everyone would likely be using it and some things were immensely popular. it's impossible not to smell it

and it was openly used. and if there is traffic between the two so many were going into the afghan tent and getting high. there are many different agricultural products marijuana is grown extensively. and so if you are in the mountains, you wouldn't see marijuana growing but if you were in the spirit dated steps you would see the massive marijuana fields patrolling. it's so heavy that the commanders had to wink at it and be careful about not having drug tests as they would have to this charge the entire unit or punish

the entire unit. one story that is related to a close friend of mine that is in the core, i was a journalist at this point this former marine with a donor when the test came along he was clean and he would donate to his friends. he would donate so that his friends wouldn't get hammered by the rules. but while they were very common on the battlefield they were mostly isolated to the afghans and this creates the situations where on the one hand we have something like a zero-tolerance policy for our force but our allies are openly actively, extensively using it. talk about the drug's afterwards

marijuana has a significant place in the conversation now the population the government serves what i mean by that is the veterans come home and they go to the va and many of the veterans of a number of problems in which substances whether illicitly abstained or prescribed are seen as a part of the common remedy. the va will prescribe the manner of drugs to the former rank-and-file. but because marijuana is a schedule one controlled substance, federally o the va cannot administer marijuana even though the jurisdiction many live in states like rhode island but that medical marijuana programs that make it quite accessible. and they will not deny care to

someone that is using marijuana but they cannot be involved in the prescription which predates pretty disheartening circumstances for many veterans. i know many that live in states that don't have medical marijuana coming and they risk legal action going out and getting it on the street. i'm not here to say that marijuana is necessarily a universal panacea because many of the inflections they suffer when they come home. the science is mixed and some people find it helpful where others don't. it's hard to get >> it consistently produced pharmaceutical product is more easily to regulate it the same from event to event and those to those i'm not here to

advocate the marijuana position was deeply confusing for veterans they are heavily prescribed with opiates and other drugs but to not have any former counseling one - - formal counseling a medical marijuana that they find alleviate symptoms and that the studies t have shown at twice the rate of overdose among the veteran population so it is a fair response to say how it is with the medical care of veterans when they have this access which they feel was w a justification much more dangerous than marijuana. my time is up. [applause] >> i'm happy to be here today.

the list to say i am honored to be reading the book today. and with the work that i do so i've always admired to tackle big questions and so this is very clear and like they say in the book and so that makes it fabulous. and then to explore and actually he mentions it there are those in the rest of the

work and the call to go back to history and it such an important thing to exaggerate with violence with market or drugs so then to actually have but the second that is part of thear work to play such an important role and then that isn't essentially especially today we think of nonstate

actors and something that is very isolated so you can see that of violence so there is that element so really that simplistic idea so the book is taking on and to mention it in the beginning and and outside

of science and with the wars we have seenov the emergence of these kind of wars that with the regulators that we will see by the products that is the idea what we see inside the state because of profits. and to say this relationship is not just the nonstate actors. and i think that is a key part of the book. so that disconnection between the wars in the drugs and then

to think alongside her we see drugs like cocaine or opium or methamphetamine. and cocaine are the drugs that have psychoactive effects but able to convince us and that does belong that coffee drinking to become widespread

afterward and the way this is so fascinating it becomes much more popular. and that is a fascinating story because it is a psychoactive substance and that is very important that in certain places and with these drugs could also be the war through drugs.

so in that regard every book is fascinating but with methamphetamines it is new and interesting so just to tell the story of the methamphetamines it has really spread and that history has not been told well. and then cocaine and methamphetamines so one thing i found fascinating is the fact that cocaine and methamphetamines are very regards.ibmany

they are comparable in the sense there is not as much widespread usage so the methamphetamines that cocaine is that cocaine is. and then this would be interesting to hear because i don't think i meant to say straightforward from the pharmaceutical companies. so that is and interesting question and another common

thread and that echoes and the role of the regulating and then the black and whites that is also we think of the markets and those that are very unsuccessful. so he chose that ultimate failure and all of those are end of being successful because of the push back and

of course there is so much delayed right now we talk mostly about marijuana with more widespread use. to have the entire history of what they intend to at the same time that it could be the hazards of heroin and cocaine today but then for thinking about what we know and for them to move forward and to

get them under control. i don't know how i'm doing on time but to finish what is very interesting from the book this is what i hope to do but we should focus there is some difference to the european incountries with those western powers and the major powers of the world and it is essential because what challenges the narrative over the last two or three decades but really in

the history so it's a very showcasing what is in the book that choose the stories for all those to choose from and im highlighting ideas but i'm also highlighting stories this is with that different relationshipip and with great britain it is a statement and it's very important.

and i want to close with one last question. and one of the major contributions to the way that we think and personally had we go back to history to give us those elements to think that it provides food for thought and with those elements how we think the problems are major today that we can look back to history but we don't know history and then to be engaged inth policies and i want to hear how people react how we to

what you are asked to provide with those recommendations. thank you. [applause] >> i will make a few brief comments. i was most impressed going beyond the subject matter the whole approach to look at history in a new way. that is when the most exciting parts of the business we are in fax don't change but we understand fax and then we can rearrange that. that is a great category of research. it gives us the new way to understand where we have been and where we are now.

it is a tool war in the reason for war that combination of those two highlights the importance and i want to pick up on something that chris said hypocrisy that is something that shines in this book but i would fill one - - build on what they said that on the one hand and using them as tools for their own purposes internationally. we use those drugs not only as motivation but inspiration for what we can get what is out there and how we can getet it. the hypocrisy extends to the tolerance of drug traffickers

from another country just as we decide how that must be a terrorist and then we find a way to make them into or a terrorist and others that wee like thenn we pretend that is democracy. the same with druglords i had a vivid experience one of the only ones i ever got to know was noriega. will never forget having an interview to tell him there are many reports you are deeply involved in drug trafficking so how do you respond? he smiled and gestured over to the aid who had a briefcase and he pulls out a letter and hands it over to me. the letter is on the letter on

- - letterhead of the drug enforcement administration dear general noriega thank you so much for all the help you have given us to control the drug traffic in the caribbean basis on - - basin signed the director of the dea. we all knew he was a drug traffic or for theti dea but he had a great game going he had the cartel they would use panama he would find out and call the o dea that they could boast of a big bust of the noriega was funneling large amounts of cocaine with full knowledge i'm sure of the dea through other channels. also in the 1980s a lot of reports that the sandinistas were financing by a shipping cocaine out and the contras were doing the same thing we didn't have the detailed information to speculate but

the answer was how could we not? it's a poor country it's a fantastic market just a few miles away so that was a substantial contributor to the wars in central america. those of us that is seen combat it must seem more chaoticme than if you watch it when you read aboutt it. the act to go out and participate violates those impulses and principles every side every human being this might be one of the reasons the reality of war is too awfulea to face so those in the normal life you don't want to

face but it's very important that they do so that helps to wipe away those governing forces. also mentioning vietnam that was a turning point in the us military. we not only went from a drug fueled military to one that was drug controlled also not consent on - - coincidentally from a draft army to voluntary. this is a big result of drug use in the military so now that is a great enabling factor for the government when it wants to prosecute wars. is a lot easier when people are not worried about the draft.

when i first started the book i wondered why he did not use sugar but then he did it was just wrapped up in an even larger drug. and in my last book u.s. army efforts to develop lsd as a weapon of war and they actually had the idea to dump huge amounts onum enemy population and think the they were hydrangea but actually the effective lsd was too unpredictable so this factors that was brilliantly highlightedti to play out in many ways.

from very small to very big. those intelligence officers because somebody is living in there we want to n get. so measure intelligence guy is walking through the village see if there are no cigarette butts outside that somebody in the telero band they may have picked up on that by now maybe they distribute them but that was certainly a factor and then also me mention the fact one of the principal form policy tools now are ennctioned we sanction government so we cannot import or export. and personally from what i covered in yugoslavia and ira

iraq, those were both situations where governments were press to move toward illegal sources of income and they turned to drug trafficking and no better example than north korea that is a major industrial exporter and does so because largely it is not able to have other kinds of economic h activity. we would not want to ignore the role of opium and other drugs to build up new england and the economy. that provide the capital for all the factories that t made new england the world power so i take away a new lens so i spent e some time why does iran

occupy like it does today there was a reverie with one - - revolution 40 years ago. why because people felt the old government was not respecting their democracy where did that idea come from? the 19 oh dro six constitutional revolution in iran said by the tobacco revolt to give the british tobacco company monopoly control and from every iranian to sell tobacco that the explosion happened and they refused to smoke to be handed down by the leading iran the figure in entire crisis in iran and how much remains to be explained

in a new way and howow variable are people whose insights are that they allow us to find a new lens and for that i applaud you peter thank you. >> nobody mentioned as lavishly illustrated that this is a point that several people mentioned implicitly incredible irony and complexity and history to take home a message don't go to war and stop the hypocrisy you may have somethinge more.

what word you advise countries to study so peacefully this history. >> should i answer that? i have to say of all the things i have written this is the book i more stuck than usual of the actual explicit policy recommendation and if you actually take seriously without illicit drugs to find those traffickers in private armies is drug legalization. that is a logical conclusion one can reach that

understandable avenue of inquiry because the source of funding today but the more illicit the drug becomes will the profiteering by nonstate actors. historically but with the tele band so that is your priority of traffickers but obviously the legalization debate is much more complicated than that. so cannabis legalization also in massachusetts and elsewhere. what helps but not a major funder of the way that cocaine and opium is.

>>. >> i haven't read the book so i want to congratulate you on the ways in which wars and drugs but i have a comment and a question. i was surprised nobody mentioned the basis of the words assassin and assassination which is hashish. that is probably in your book but my question goes back to how often with the opium wars

are drugs overt or covert reason for war but actual nationstates or the equivalent? >> just on the first thing that you mentioned a famous story i don't include it because there is debate if it is myth that it is just folklore. so i don't go there because it is said it is a mythical story that people like to tell but the second question is the relationships that i unpack and identify is war for drugs and this is why think it's important to distinguish war

for drugs or through drugs because the policy debate discussions i actually war through drugs overwhelms both historically and today. there are always exceptions but for the most part they were extraordinarily potent facilitator of warfare but to really point to that explicit why they went to war was drugs we are much more aware so the opium war is the first thing to come to mind but we always fall back on that is the prime historical example but today i think it's the war for drugs is illicit drugs and largely

in places such as mexico. >> not the china side but the opm connection based in your description that they are mobilize to support a private company with an interesting combination here but now the question is what emerged from economic history over the last 40 years and as a self-discipline in america is dead with economic history continues to be a vibrant discipline in europe so there are new estimates of the proportion of manufacturing in different parts of the world

in 15 and 1600 it's impossible to estimate. so with what happened to china after the opium wars i'm not saying that led to the decline of the chinese economy but to give a sense of the correlation correlations, until 1800 china use the manufacturing output and it only had one fourth of the manufacturing of what we call the west today but when the war was sending and then china was six.2 put out donald mann --dash was six.2 and 1900

and then it rises 16.2 at 77.four in 1900 so the question is this are there examples that you know where wars over drugs lead to war correlated was such a steep economic decline as we saw in china? and in the chinese literature they also disclose the idea of the 100 years of opium wars and the decline the china saw are there such cases a steep economic decline correlated if not caused by wars over drugs? >> there may be but i cannot think of a case. having said that i am wary

talking to the unitary causal relationship of what you point to it opium that correlation is not causation opium is a culprit but one of the lessons in the book it hits you over the head of the importance of drugs in relationship to war but at the end of the day warning to say i also don't want you to drug the analysis it is not drugs drugs drugs am wary to basically say look at china 100 years after the opium wars is because of opium it's more complicated than that but it is an important culprit in one thing fascinating is after the second in china that basically it basically became itself the largest producer of opium in the world and said we cannot

keep out the indian imports of opium we will legalize and produce it ourselves so china is the largest consumer and producer of opium. but the economic decline is relative to other places rising so that is also problematic but opium certainly is a big culprit opium and china is the chinese identity to be poisoned by the outside world and imperialism paves the way for the chinese revolution. >> so one of the biggest losers that china led the most sweeping effective world

against drugs the world has ever seen given the previous year history and with the golden triangle of southeast asia. >> thank you for sharing. >> i immediately started to jump hearing from killer high and the sixties with lsd and antidrug movement today we see the resurgence of those ideas of the sixties especially with hallucinogenic drugs and marijuana and the breakthrough status of mushrooms and i just want your perspective on hallucinogenic drugs sixties

through today and how they fit into this discussion. >> great question. i explained in the introduction why certain drugs so it's a history not a history of seven or eight or nine and hallucinogenic don't make the cut for all sorts of reasons some you may have mentioned is not effective on the battlefield and states have never figured out how to taxut them they are very niche drugs and also considered antiwar drug certainly true of canada in the sixties so shown brilliantly it was researched with the mind control drug under the cia but that still didn't rise it to the status of the globally commercialized mass consumption profitable

drugs the way the others are. one thing that will grow chris mentioned returning gis to various drugs coping with the aftermath of war but research shows one of the most effective treatments with ptsd is mdm a there is a push to get the v.a. to reschedule at using it for medical purposes. we can project in the future but sitting here ten years ago nobody would predict marijuana so it's possible we could see a proliferation of what he just described as the present momentib. >>.

>> it is such provocative work. but i would like to ask you to make comparisons to other. so we do talk about the addiction to oil and conflicts surrounding oil and what are the parallels between the drug wars and oil related wars but also a different kind of addiction social media and facebook to get that kind of commerce so can you draw alparallels across psychoactive substances of oil and war in thefe commercial product? >> great question. i don't go there in the book

and to make those linkages and perhaps i should have. one dimension of the relationship through drugs that is where you can clearly see another example of resource war wars. so in that regard it's part of the larger universities and commodities to generate revenue not a particularly unfamiliar story but important. so in central america they say those are the views in the 1980s. and regardless of that legal status and then comparing that

to the other things a mention of social media. >> and to say david cartwright's new book is better known drug historian has a new book called the age of addiction. but it does take a big ambitious sweep so i don't go there but it is provocative. and to others but i do conclude and with that between war and drugs but also think of war itself and war as a drug.

and to be considered drug like with the adrenaline rush. that is a case of addiction back in suburbia. and those that were journalists. and then to describe the rush of war as a drug. and then to describe the effect and to describe that addiction.

>>. >> was anybody doing anything with addiction science. where you can find something else. and generally written about. >> the age of addiction he is a historian and takes it all the way back centuries. but i would not point i to one person so why do know there is a considerable amount of research and more should be

funded with the nature of addiction. and with that addiction vaccine interestingly enough is a possibility down the road. but i don't have a name for you. >> so that has been answered with your last question. and the effect of the opium war on china but it seems like if anything it would been war not drugs were the cause. and then just to say maybe the drug of the analysis.

>>. >>. >> maybe we should conclude by letting the panelists say something. cocaine did not take off on the battlefield. and there are plenty of evidence and led by the us to go against cocaine. and to be a big fan of cocaine it was the first one to come aware of it because germans were testing it on soldiers. it is the perfect example is much easier to identify how something changed and why

exactly because cocaine it becomes more criminalized status of the 20th century. therefore much less use for functional purposes on the battlefield. with the suggestion of the us military study the positive effects of coca but it is a mild stimulant. it is such an anti- drug mode to squash any research so those peruvian soldiers to have that incredible energy boosting so it does open the door for amphetamines because

what is interesting man amphetamines become criminalized that is when cocaine takes off because people do turn to cocainen recreationally. >> and on the last page i agree with that observation more as a drug. and for myi perspective and those that are watching and fighting. also at a higher level and for the politicians in such a great political benefit it pays off in so many ways.

so i feel that addiction at that level is more pernicious even than the individual to those that see it unfold. >> is also how we define addiction. >> but i didn't say this and i was talking but and still get a deep understanding maybe a reason like cocaine because it was coming from south america obviously. >> i am not a historian and

this is very valuablek for that with my own experiences and if you really want to see to observe and document the failures of the modern american military one of the surefire places to do this and its work against drugs in afghanistan. it was astonishing one of the surest ways to get and a gunfight to do counter narcotics work. it is not ideological and practical because to burn a poppy field is to essentially impact the hillbilly economy with top cover so they realize pretty quickly at the operational level in my stop doing that and tolerated that although there was an effort

to reduce the poppy production they said they should try they didn't want to lose people to this. a lot of people and the doctrinal contradiction in the counterinsurgency but if you talking about the wartime economy a like tomatoes or melons is that enduring product you can hold onto is not perishable. so naturally it is very heavily in the areas that could grow opium because of climate and water access. and those activities that look like the accomplishment and to see those fields be burned but

they have already been harvested. so they pay the farmer to let it be burned but he already remove the t product you are burning the stubble it was a farce and a safe patrol to go on. an absolute farce and a common. you can also find very reliably the places it would almost be certainly grown. precious the way thatt it was and i commend and recommend it. >> thank you. books are outside. [applause] >> there is a reception outside.