And the As the Cold War came to an end, President Bush Senior defined his election bid in terms of the war on drugs.

It was said that there was no longer a Soviet foe to grapple with.

Instead, illegal narcotics posed an existential threat to the American people.

Yet as it turns out, the war on drugs have been going for much longer than this,

and you can trace it back to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the country's first Drug Enforcement Agency.

I'm your host James Rogers, this is the Warfare Podcast, and in today's episode I'm joined

by Matt Pemberton, who takes us back almost a hundred years to the origins of America's violent

global war on drugs, its battle against paramilitaries and its struggle to

contain addiction.

Hi Matt, welcome to the history hit warfare podcast.

How are you doing today?

I'm good, thanks for having me.

Not a problem at all.

Where are you speaking to us from in the world?

I am here in the Washington DC region. In the

seats of power where drug policy and counter-narcotics are created where strategies

are devised. This is what you work on a day-to-day basis, isn't it?

It is in my scholarly life, yeah.

Well, I'm excited to get into this history.

I've been wanting to get into the history of the war on drugs for a very long time and I suppose when I would

conceptualize this in my head the history would perhaps involve looking at

George Bush senior and his war on drugs that election-winning

...