
War and drugs: Together since forever - knowablemag
https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/society/2019/war-and-drugs-together-forever
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rancor
Good article, but the response to the last question on the use of cannabis in
warfare is pretty thoroughly wrong: [https://sensiseeds.com/en/blog/cannabis-
may-used-weapon-war/](https://sensiseeds.com/en/blog/cannabis-may-used-weapon-
war/)

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omio
Drug use by Marines, Taliban and Afghan police/army during the Helmand
province campaign needs its own study and book.

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in_hindsight
Why that province specifically?

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omio
Just an anecdote of mine. I'm sure there was plenty of drug use in other
provinces but my personal experience was in the Helmand. I try not to talk
about other places and units I don't have experience in.

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yocheckit
Was their a lot of drug use going on? Which drugs?

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omio
Oh yea. Mostly weed and some opium. In my company over 50% of us smoked weed.

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inflatableDodo
A line from Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, linked to by the article -

 _' The next day, sensible they had misbehav’d in giving us that disturbance,
they sent three of their old counselors to make their apology. The orator
acknowledg’d the fault, but laid it upon the rum; and then endeavoured to
excuse the rum by saying, ”The Great Spirit, who made all things, made
everything for some use, and whatever use he design’d anything for, that use
it should always be put to. Now, when he made rum, he said, ‘Let this be for
the Indians to get drunk with,’ and it must be so.“

And, indeed, if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages in
order to make room for cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that
rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who
formerly inhabited the sea-coast.'_

The passage of time has amusingly cursed him here however. From his own hand,
the Indians now come off as witty and polite and he ends up looking like the
savage.

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adatavizguy
Considering Benjamin Franklin in other writings has shown a much more
enlightened view of Indians, this passage you quoted might have been written
with sarcasm and this is an earlier example of Poe's law. This passage has
more to do with the virtue of temperance and rum than indians. This passage is
more like objectively talking about how the CIA worked to help import cocaine
in the United States in the 80s and how African American communities like
Harlem were being destroyed because of the crack epidemic because of these
policies of the government.

This passage edited for 2019 internet should read.

'The next day, sensible they had misbehav’d in giving us that disturbance,
they sent three of their old counselors to make their apology. The orator
acknowledg’d the fault, but laid it upon the rum; and then endeavoured to
excuse the rum by saying, ”The Great Spirit, who made all things, made
everything for some use, and whatever use he design’d anything for, that use
it should always be put to. Now, when he made rum, he said, ‘Let this be for
the Indians to get drunk with,’ and it must be so.“

And, indeed, if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages in
order to make room for cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that
rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who
formerly inhabited the sea-coast.' /s

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dmix
Interesting article.

> "War on drugs”: It's a term that may elicit memories of the US government’s
> 20th-century campaign against the sale and use of illegal psychoactive
> substances

Every country in the western world and Asia set up a war on drugs too. Like
most things it's not unique to America.

The whole banning drugs thing extended into plenty of different cultures. But
became a much bigger issue after we developed our modern economic system which
combined mass production with global distribution channels and provided a
whole lot of people with disposable income to spend.

> Or opium, for which the British government went to war — twice — with China.

Opium wasn't _really_ the reason they went to war, it was mostly just economic
bullying by Britian's part which extended into a bunch of other reasons. It
could easily have been over any product like tea (which is what Britian was
exchanging the opium for).

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kiliantics
> Every country in the western world and Asia set up a war on drugs too.

Most modern drug policies that are adopted outside the US were adopted due to
pressure from the US or the UN (which is basically the US)

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kiliantics
Noteworthy examples that seem to be missing from this are the use of
hallucinogenic mushrooms/herbs by the Viking berserkers and the more modern
use of Captagon by members of ISIS.

