Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avrogan.

This day, September, 1986, September 14th is the night, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady

Nancy Reagan appear on national television to address the nation on the campaign against drug abuse.

President Reagan spoke about new regulations for mandatory drug testing, increased spending on drug

education.

He talked about how marijuana use was still widespread and about how the crack cocaine epidemic was growing out of control

Nancy Reagan also spoke she declared that there was quote no moral middle ground on the issue of drugs and implored viewers to be

unyielding and inflexible when it came to confronting drug use and of course she

uttered that famous phrase of the Reagan era War on Drugs, Just Say No.

So let's talk about the Reagan's prime time drug address the larger context of the war on drugs.

Here as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello Jody.

Hey there.

And also with us we are so excited to have the perfect guest for this journalist Donovan X Ramsey, of the new book when crack was king

Donovan congratulations on this book and I've been working on it for a while and

it's so great to have you on and yeah it's so great to see the book out in the wild

Thank you Jody and thanks for having me. Yeah and I should add the subtitle to the book is

a people's history of a misunderstood era and I think it's really important to point out that what this book does really well is kind of humanize and paint a picture of the real people who were caught up in the crack cocaine epidemic and the war on drugs.

And the book I guess is really about all the things

that Ronald and Nancy Reagan weren't talking about on TV that night,

but we will get into that because that's really the thrust of your work.

But first, why are they going on TV? And I guess also, why is Nancy there alongside Ronald in this prime time address?

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