As the Cold War came to an end, US President George H.W. Bush defined his 1992 election bid in terms of the War on Drugs. It was said that there was no longer a Soviet foe to grapple with and that, instead, illegal narcotics now posed an existential threat to the American people.

Yet as it turns out, the War on Drugs actually began much longer ago than this, back to the founding of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) in 1930.

In this episode, James is joined by Matthew Pembleton from the American University in Washington DC to help trace the origins of America's bloody and costly global War on Drugs.

Matt's book Containing Addiction: The Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the Origins of America's Global Drug War is available on Amazon here.

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