narcopolitics

How have drugs been used in warfare? Why does the cocaine in London nightclubs pass through a dictatorship in West Africa? Why did British soldiers get high on hallucinogens and try to talk to birds? How does heroin bought in the West create a market for child brides?

How have drugs changed human history?

You may not realize it, but drugs are a huge part of politics. Drugs have been used in wars stretching back thousands of years, and may have proven decisive in some history-changing battles. These days the familiar tales of drug lords in Colombia or Mexico only scratch the surface when it comes to the wild world of Narcopolitics.

We explore why British soldiers got high on hallucinogens and climbed trees; why cocaine being snorted in London nightclubs is helping to prop up the corrupt narcostate dictatorship in Guinea-Bissau; why heroin consumption in the United States is encouraging the sale of child brides in Afghanistan; why women in Latin America might end up as drug mules or as a “girlfriend of the gang,”; and we look at the opioid epidemic in the United States and the differences between licit and illicit opium; and we tackle a $500 billion question: does it make sense to legalize some drugs?

Executive Producer: George McDonagh.