#318 Colombia, the US and the War on Drugs w/ Lina Britto
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2024
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Most Americans are aware of Colombia's role in the international drug trade, but we know less about the role that Americans played in the story as consumers, smuggling pioneers, and practitioners of a foreign policy that facilitated the rise of Colombian drug production.
In this episode, journalist and historian Lina Britto shares the fascinating story of how Colombia emerged as a major supplier of drugs to American consumers and how this relationship affected people in both countries. She also explains the origins of the "War on Drugs" in the US and tells the story of how Americans hippies in search of marijuana laid the groundwork for the distribution techniques later used by Pablo Escobar's cocaine cartel.
Dr. Lina Britto is Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University where she specializes in Colombian history and the history of the international drug trade. She is the author of Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia's First Drug Paradise (University of California Press, 2020)
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer and this is The Road to Now. |
| 0:08.8 | Our guest today is Dr. Lena Brito. |
| 0:11.4 | She is an associate professor of history at Northwestern University, where she specializes |
| 0:16.0 | in Colombian history and the history of the international drug trade. |
| 0:19.6 | She's published many works on the topic, |
| 0:21.7 | including the book Marijuana Boom, The Rise and Fall of Columbia's First Drug Paradise from 2020. |
| 0:27.8 | We get into the origins of the drug trade in Colombia, the war on drugs, how Colombia became |
| 0:34.2 | the country that it is, which is associated with two things, coffee and cocaine, and |
| 0:38.7 | actually how the origins are in marijuana and how that story is very different than the other |
| 0:43.6 | two stories of coffee and cocaine. And I'm just going to leave a lot of this for the conversation, |
| 0:48.6 | but here's one to look forward to. Pablo Escobar, the Colombian cocaine cartel man, he couldn't have done it probably without American hippies who went down and established the smuggling networks that later on became key to cocaine smugglers. |
| 1:04.1 | Way do you hear that story. |
| 1:05.7 | Before we go, just want to say, thank you to the patrons. |
| 1:08.9 | You keep our show going if you want to sign up and help support the show, |
| 1:12.2 | that's patreon.com slash the road to now. |
| 1:15.6 | And hey, we understand not everybody's in a position |
| 1:17.9 | to donate money to every podcast they listen to. |
| 1:21.0 | But if you could, give us a rating of review on Apple Podcasts |
| 1:25.0 | or give us stars on Spotify or friends, please spread the word. I think this |
| 1:30.2 | episode is going to be one that has some moments in it that you're going to want to share. So think |
| 1:34.4 | of someone who could benefit from learning about this story about the war on drugs and |
| 1:38.3 | Colombia and shoot them a link. Thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back with another |
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