Colombia, the US and the War on Drugs w/ Lina Britto

The Road to Now

Benjamin Sawyer

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 628 Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2026

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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 is a rebroadcast of RTN #318, which originally aired on November 4, 2024. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the road to now.
0:08.8	And if you're part of the world looks anything like me and Bob's part of the world right now,
0:13.0	your roads might be a little dangerous.
0:15.2	What a week.
0:16.3	I live in Nashville and we are just going back to school tomorrow,
0:20.7	at least the colleges, after
0:22.1	being off for a while. And for goodness sakes, I hope none of you guys lost power. Somehow we
0:27.7	dodged the bullet, but we still got a lot of our neighbors here in Nashville who are without
0:31.7	their power. So it's been a wild week. And just as we were coming out of the worst of it, boom, North Carolina got hit
0:39.1	where Bob is. So we have been, we've been buried, I think, in more than one way. I had to pivot to
0:45.3	online classes last week. No fun. Anyway, all that's to say, we've been quite occupied here
0:51.3	at the road to now. And this week, we are going to share an episode from
0:55.7	24, a conversation that was as enlightening as it is delightful. The guest is Lina Brito.
1:03.6	She is Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University. The topic is the drug trade.
1:09.2	And I was already thinking about this the whole time. We were talking about the Monroe Doctrine and U.S. intervention in Latin America in the last episodes, because this really gets into that. I mean, say, at least for me, it's very hard to conceptualize of the problems of the drug trade without thinking about, you know, our role in it. There is a lot of
1:30.0	drug consumption that goes on, and where there is demand, there will be supply. Anyway, this conversation
1:36.8	is fantastic. Did you know a bunch of hippies from the United States help start the drug trade
1:41.0	with Colombia? If not, you're about to. Before we go, though, patrons,
1:45.7	you guys are incredible. Thank you so much for supporting the show. If you want to join us and
1:50.0	help keep this show going, it's patreon.com slash the road to now. If you can make it, we're always
1:54.9	grateful. But if not, please give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. Five stars, please. And if you
2:00.8	write a little something, that goes a lot farther. Spotify, if you listen there, and heck, we're on YouTube. So welcome to those of you guys on YouTube. You want to give us a thumbs up or subscribe? That's great. We're actually seeing some folks show up there. So it's great to have you. Everyone, wherever you may be, it's cold outside.
	...

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