Opium war as an anomaly or something very particular to a very particular time and place. I am saying i am guilty of thinking about the opium war that way. But great scholarship, truly great scholarship like killer high in a lot of the work thats done here at the Watson Institute forces me and us to see the world in a totally new way. This book, has forced me, and i think it forces all readers to really focus on the internal and expansive relationship between drugs and war. That relationship extends from war conducted by people who were on a form of drug, some kind of psychoactive substance. It extends to wars and conquest of drugs or the Raw Materials for drugs, extends to wars for markets and for outlets for drugs, and as we are all familiar with wars against drug. But peter argues so effectively this phenomenon, this interaction between psychoactive substances and conflict, is laced throughout history. And right up until the present. Peter makes a number of very interesting conclusions in this book but also raises a number of questions. Think we are going to have a number of delve into those questions that again emphasizes this entirely new lens that peter did this to see the world. Let me quickly explain how we are going to proceed. Im going to ask peter to speak for ten minutes or so about the book, and then im going to ask our panelists each comment for ten minutes or so each on the book. And then we are going to open up to questions and answers. If you will be briefly introduced peter and our panelists. Peter andreas is a professor of International Studies here at the Washington Institute and department applicable science but he is the authored coauthor coeditor of 11 books including of course killer hi, but also 2013 books smuggler nation, thats quite relevant today as we talk about living in a world of trade frictions and talk about piracy and make claims about a variety of countries. Next to speak will be chris who is a pulitzer prizewinner journalist for the New York Times im sure all of you know his work, i am a big fan. He is work to the New York Times since 1999, his career as a Foreign Correspondent has focused on conflict regions in afghanistan, iraq, chechnya, libya, and syria among others. Chris also served at the marine corps infantry man in combat veteran from the first gulf war, the persian gulf tour. Next to speak will be in hell at martinez who is a associate professor at massachusetts. The 2013 phd recipient from brown. She is a noted expert on latin american and politics with a particular emphasis on organized crime and criminality. Illicit markets and the relationships between state actors and nonstate actors. Often our nonstate actors purge she is the author of the awardwinning 2018 book the politics of drug violence, chemicals cops and politicians and next appeared that some Oxford University press. And steven kinzer, well known to everybody here is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute and of course an awardwinning journalist who over the course of his career covered more than 50 countries on five continents. Steven spent more than 20 years working for the day or times as a foreign core and spohn at bureau chief, and among his numerous claims of books include the 2019 volume poison or in chief and the cia search for mind control. Obviously topical for the discussion today. So with that, let me turn the microphone over to peter undress. [applause] thank you all for coming. If you are here because you think this is about the madefortv dvds, killer high sorry to disappoint you, im sure that dvd has and will else out sell my book. The genre for that listing on amazon is horror comedy. [laughter] so this, my book is definitely horror there is no comedy. In fact, the title killer i was going on my choice was originally was a subtitle of the book history of war in six drugs. Let me just give you a few highlights of the book. What i try to do in the near 367 pages is retail the history of warfare through the lens of drugs. And we tell the history of drugs through the lens of war. And hopefully, for those who havent read the book you will not quite think of war again in the same way. You will not quite think of drugs in the same way. In fact i would like to convince you that drugs and war Work Together and over time became quite addicted to each other. Oneliner will be drugs made war, and war made drugs. These two things tend to be treated quite separately in the literature on war on drugs. So i systematically tried to tie them together across time, cross place, and across psychoactive substance. The motivation for the book was not history, it was to bring history into what i consider a policy debate that suffers from a case of historical amnesia. A date about the nexus between drugs and conflict. We talked today about narco states, the first thing it comes to mind is afghanistan. We think about narco insurgents or narco interiors and we think of columbia and again maybe afghanistan. But look at this issue from a much deeper historical sweep, going back not just years and decades but centuries. The first true narco state is probably Great Britain. In fact Great Britain is probably the first narco empire if you think about the sheer importance of alcohol taxes, importance of tea trade, thats a powerful drug i am addicted to it its called caffeine. Nicotine, dont touch the stuff. With the ports of opium trade. For the rise of britain as the worlds foremost maritime power. In fact, narco insurgents, yes its the telamon but it was also George Washington. Why do i say George Washington . Well, that conflict very much depended on revenue generated by tobacco. They got a loan from france based on tobacco revenue in the brits were so upset about it they burn tobacco fields never they found them. Including tobacco fields owned by thomas jefferson. So what i try to do in this book is systematically unravel, interrogate, unpack the relationship between drugs and war. And i actually find there are five relationships. What is war while on drugs, literally combat and drug use in war. But not just combat but on the homefront as well, and drug use by civilians coping with wartime. Obviously, war is stressful work. No supplies that drugs help soldiers cope, they also help them celebrate victories, help them prepare for battle, give them liquid courage after all. I also talk about war through drugs. Totally different than war while on drugs. War through drugs means using drugs primarily to fund war that ranges from tobacco taxes to cocaine and opium revenue. The full gamut from licit to illicit drugs. Natural to semi synthetic to fully synthetic drugs. From the most benign to the most dangerous psychoactive substances. Then there is war for drugs which is actually distinct from the first two. The war for drugs is going to war over drug markets and instead already mentioned, the most famous case of this of course are the opium wars of the mid 19th century where britain forced opium onto china through the barrel of a gun. Bulk is also up to the present if you think about whats going on in mexico today. More people died in a sicko since late 2006 then died in iraq and afghanistan combined. Drug violence, that although security analysts are reluctant to call it, war, if you actually look at the sheer number of casualties, if you look at how well armed the hell with the perpetrators are using wartime equivalent, the actors themselves are military trained and defectors from the military. One case u. S. Trained antidrug force turn into a drug hit squad. For Drug Trafficking organizations. And when you think about the state itself has deployed its military and a french roll inviting drugs. The mexican militarys antidrug at this point. But not just mexico but columbia just extends and brazil to some extent. And even the United States until 1980 has loosened that restricted the u. S. Military for and Law Enforcement purposes. Now very much, embedded in the war on drugs. At the border and beyond, and proliferation militarys policing and swat teams were invented before the war on drugs. But really took off, thanks to the war on drugs and this is using military technologies, ex military person to now, and fighting a substance. There is the war against drugs, which is closely related but distinct. War against drugs start as a metaphor, nixon declared war against drugs. He didnt actually send in troops to fight drugs but since the 1980s and has progressively become more militarized and we can call it an outright war. And last but not least, this is probably the research in the book that most surprised me, is drugs after war. How much for itself left a Lasting Legacy in terms of drug production, trafficking, regulation, drug tastes have been fundamentally altered thanks to wars in ways that we often dont give the work credit for. Just to give you a few examples, why are we a coffee drinking rather than a tea drinking nation . Because we won the american revolution. The brits went on with tea, we turn to coffee. They not only turn to coffee but whiskey. Rum was produced right here in rhode island right before the american revolution. Distilleries kept it going including in massachusetts, never revived after the american revolution. Whiskey became the alcohol beverage of choice. It was a national drink, it no longer needed importance from abroad. Attorney inset british drink that rum, tea, so the very taste that we now just take for granted, are actually the result of war. The very criminalization of cocaine is a product of world war ii. Very few people remember that cocaine was legally produced by japanese pharmaceutical companies. The destruction of those fields and the destruction of the japanese pharmaceutical cocaine is part of the u. S. Victory in world war ii. The u. S. Turned against cocaine much earlier course, but it wasnt just with the japan they was actually able to globalize for cocaine prohibition. Actually one of the biggest losers of world war ii. Illegal was one of the biggest winners. Those of the five relationships. I want to tell you a little bit in the few minutes i have about the six key drugs are paired of our day given you hints because ive mentioned some of them. The oldest most multipurpose and argue bleed doubleedged is alcohol. It goes back to beer, and wine. And then the distilling revolution really did indeed revolutionaries things. Think about, just think about why france is the worlds most famous wine producing region in the world. The roman conquest brought wine to france. Board joe was up as a port by the romans after the romans retreated and pushed back. Wine endures in france. Right . The distilled revolution was absently essential to the conquest of the new world. Think about the importance of alcohol as an ethnic cleanser and the westwards expansion. In fact, alcohol became so important, that it was actually rum rations on both sides of the american revolution. After the revolution, whiskey became part of u. S. Military rations. In fact, the british, believe it or not had rum rations until the early 1970s on their naval ships. The second drug, tobacco, and arrives much later than alcohol but once it arrives, equally as potent and in fact, the downsides of alcohol, alcohol basically you can raise a lot of revenue but you might have drunk military. The czar was able to finance the largest Army Standing army in your with his alcohol revenue but his soldiers were drunk. Tobacco is highly portable, fights both anxiety and boredom. Relieves is highly taxable and doesnt impede performance even if it might eventually kill you. The globalization of tobacco is intimately also about the spread of warfare. So globalize warfare. The very mode of Tobacco Consumption was closely influenced by war. So why did we turn away from hookahs and pipes to cigars and then cigarettes. Increasingly portable, easy to protas, to move, this was the intimate story of war. In fact, cigarettes, by the time world war ii came around, was the most valued ration in soldier rations. Third, caffeine, my drug of choice im completely addicted to the stuff. Its the most worlds most popular psychoactive substance. But certainly far from a benign relationship to war. Arguably stimulated into expansion, i already mentioned the British Empire tea. But then we also have the rise of caffeinated soldiers. Its fascinating in the case of the u. S. Civil war, coffee is mentioned in soldier diaries more often than gun, cannon, or rifle. Coffee is just an essential ingredient to keep soldiers going. Instant coffee was an instant hit on the battlefield in world war ii. And then outlived world war ii. The coffee break was actually introduced for defense workers during world war ii. And then outlived world war ii and institutionalized in the workplace in the 1950s. And then, all the way up to today, the favorite beverage at military bases across the world are hyper caffeinated beverages like red bull, monster, and so on. For is opium. I already mentioned opium wars are extreme case of the relationship to the war on drugs which is the war for drugs. For example the Japanese Imperial occupation of china. There is no way that japan in the 1930s could fund its occupation of china without narcotics. Amphetamines and extreme cases of war while on drugs says induces speed is the essence of war. He did not mean amphetamines but he would be pretty impressed at how important amphetamines were to keep soldiers on many sides going. Specially during world war ii. And last but not least, cocaine, the extreme case of war against drugs which have already said a few things about. I will stop there and turn things over to chris. [applause] thank you peter. Im going to open with compliments if you look at my copy, all the way through, you can tell i was engaged. When i get to the end of the book and ive used up to in pins its probably a sign its a good book. I was in a really lucky reader, peter got me a copy over christmas and i spent the holidays with it. Its a work of history as you just heard. And history is an act of making diverse and sometimes divergent sources cohere into an understanding and maybe a set of narratives that are relatable analyses that can make you as you said imagine the worlds and understand and new. In this case the world of war. That was my experience but i dont want to talk about history at least not distant history. I want to talk more about now and the more recent observation since the persian gulf war of 9091. In the socalled global war on terror because 2001 and bringing the events that peter has related up to the present time. Are there any recent veterans in the room . Any . No . Well good maybe one theyll be something on cspan and you can fact check me as intel people data making comments afterward. We talk about or peter talks about in the book and in his remarks, the place the various substances have on the battlefield. The battlefields of this error that we live in now, have changed a bit from modern conventional militaries. Wars become so technical and the military commands have become in some cases so politically sensitive, that some of the longstanding drugs in the battlefield are now prohibited. Alcohol most notably. For a variety of reasons, although the military is a heavy user at the personal level of alcohol. At the unit level, when deployed, alcohol not to say nonexistent because its not. But its almost invisible. It is quite rare its a very unusual to see alcohol in the battlefield some of this is because the wars since 2001 since the gulf war in fact have often played out among islamic populations. And there is a sensitivity to having the military having this faux pas in the country. It should have been in some cases invited or occupied. But in any case hoping to get along with the population better than what the otherwise might. So there still alcohol you wont see much of it. You have to look. When i was in the 80s and 90s, there were, among the troops, i was in the marine infantry this things called snakebite kits. They were used for is in or a joke and their people would have sent to them shampoo bottles, perhaps with a little bourbon in it. But it was quite guarded, it was very obvious as you know most everyone here has some sort of relationship with alcohol. Its very hard to hide alcohol use. With the odor. I remember one snakebite kit being broken out on a warship i was on and they literally locked the doors and someone said i just got bit by a funking snake and pulled out a bottle and everybody got like a couple of shots. That was it. On a ten month deployment. There is not much alcohol there at all. But, there are many other drugs out there. And there is a deep hypocrisy and how our military and western military in general relate to drugs in their own forces versus into their allied forces. And what i mean by that is since the failed hostage rescue attempt in the carter administration, which drug use was given part of the blame for the failure for the mechanical failure of the aircraft. As a story that circulated the military years after, that the sailor had been smoking pot in the hangar deck, and it caused a small fire in a garbage can and it activated Sprinkler System which had sprayed some saltwater and some of the aircraft and this was considered perhaps a culprit in one of the aircraft failures on the mission. Whether the story is apocryphal i have not done the deep dive to search it but it was a story we had. As a result it had gone to service that coming out of vietnam they use marijuana very heavily now had drug testing. You teen regular urinalysis. Sometimes randomized. They would do things like take a unit and poll numbers out of a hat and savior so security and then five or seven then you all have to report to the first sgt for urinalysis today. And it was not quite zerotolerance, you were given two chances. But you would be prosecuted on the first chance or on the first hit and discharged on the second with a negative discharge that could affect you for the rest of your life. So the use of marijuana, really fell off in the 80s. In our force, in the western forces, but when you go to the battlefields now, you will find the allies may be heavily using. And some of you said your book is horrible comedy, some of the scenes ice on afghanistan would qualify as comedy. It would be tense alongside each other with americans and western forces in one and the Afghan Partner and the other. And the americans would all be dipping copenhagen, which is a