The Len Bias Law (1986) w/ Adam McKay

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2021

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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It’s June 20th. This day in 1986, news of the death of basketball star Len Bias is starting to spread around the country. Bias died of a cocaine overdose just days after being drafted by the Boston Celtics.

Jody, NIki, and Kellie are joined by director and producer Adam McKay (The Big Short, Anchorman) to talk about how Bias’s death fueled a narrative about the dangers of cocaine and crack. Later that summer, politicians would rush through punitive drug laws that created mandatory minimum sentences and huge disparities between how crack and powder cocaine were treated.

Adam recently hosted a podcast series “Death at the Wing” which features an episode on Len Bias. Jody served as executive producer. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts! https://www.threeuncannyfour.com/show/death-at-the-wing/

Find a transcript of this episode at: https://tinyurl.com/esoterichistory

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from
0:07.1	Radiotopia my name is Jody Avergan
0:10.9	This day June 20, 1986, news reports are starting to emerge about the death of basketball
0:18.0	player Len Bias.
0:19.6	The night before Bias had died of a cocaine overdose, this was just a few days after he'd been
0:24.4	drafted by the Boston Celtics and was poised to become an NBA star, maybe even
0:29.6	a main rival to Michael Jordan. Why is this a political story and not just a sports story?
0:35.0	Well, because Len Bias' death happened right in the middle of a moral and political panic about cocaine and crack in this country.
0:42.0	And by the end of the summer Congress had passed
0:44.3	sweeping anti-drug legislation that in effect gave birth in many ways to the
0:49.6	modern prison industrial complex and all sorts of punitive drug laws. So here to discuss
0:54.6	biases death and the political ripple effects still being felt to this day are as
0:59.2	always Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello Hello Jody. Hey there. And our special guest for this
1:06.0	episode is the director and producer Adam McKay. I've mentioned a few times on this show
1:10.5	that I worked with Adam on this series called Death at the Wing which
1:14.0	looks at the intersection of basketball and politics in the 80s and we did an
1:17.5	episode online bias we've been waiting for this news hook this date hook to have
1:21.6	Adam on but Adam McKay a founding member of UC B and a director of
1:26.2	anchor man and stepbrothers and a producer on succession director of the big short I could go on
1:31.2	and on to welcome to the show.
1:32.8	Thanks for doing it.
1:33.4	Thank you for having me.
	...

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