168 If Music Be the Food of Love, Are Drugs the Food of War?
From The History of American Food by Margaret Hardin
April 29, 2026 · 25 min · Season 5
About this episode
This episode explores America's historical relationship with drugs, particularly focusing on the opioid epidemic and its ties to war and agriculture.
How long has America been dealing with Opiod Epidemics? If you said - since the 1860's you get a piece of Hardtack! Yes - just as war came up with more destructive weapons, the medical profession came up with the hypodermic syringe. While the ability to inject and extract things with this tool have been largely amazing, it also brought in the addictive rush of injected drugs. And one of the first injected drugs was opium. Even crazier than that was the fact the the US Government contracted with Chinese Immigrant farmers in Mexico to grow a large part of the supply of opium used in the war. America has always used drugs to make America go - has depended on the sale of drugs - nicotine and cafffeine for starters - to make American farmig profitable. Come find out about America's strange relationship with drugs - and how much we seem to not want to talk about it. Music Credit: Fingerlympics by Doctor Turtle Show Notes: https://thehistoryofamericanfood.blogspot.com/ Email: TheHistoryofAmericanFood at gmail dot com Threads: @THoAFood Instagram: @THoAFood & some other socials... @THoAFood
People in this episode
Host: Margaret Hardin
Topics covered
- Opioid Epidemics
- American history
- drugs in war
- medical advancements
- addiction
- agriculture
Keywords
- opioid epidemic
- opium
- addiction
- US Government
- drugs
- history
- agriculture
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: US Government
Products: opium, nicotine, caffeine
Books & works: Fingerlympics
Places: Mexico
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