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Heroin: The Drug · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Josh and Chuck your friends, and we
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  Speaker 1: an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things. That's right, and
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  Speaker 1: it out soon coming this fall. Welcome to Stuff you
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: All Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and there's Charles w. Chuck Bryan over there, and it's
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: just the two of us. Um, we can make it
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: if we try. It's just the two of us, Chuck
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and I. That's right. Uh, and we are stuff you
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: should know the Heroin addition, Yeah, I haven't covered Heroin yet. No,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: we haven't. We have not. Um and Ed helped us
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: out with this, and I love how he just put
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: it straight up. Heroin is a demon. I'm like, Che's
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: way to be objective. You know what occurred to me
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: because I like to think of things that the lens
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: of movies a lot of times. Uh, pot movies rarely,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: if ever any good. What have you ever seen? Days
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and Confused? My friend, I don't consider we we talked
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: about this on movie Crush and All and I I
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: don't consider that a weed movie. Although it's featured heavily,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I would call it one of the main characters. I
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: don't call it a weed movie. I consider weed movies
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: like Cheech and Chong movies. What about Half Baked, Half Baked?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: How High? Like movies where it's literally just about marijuana,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Like Days and Confused about a bunch of friends in
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the seventies and the school fair enough, fair enough. Other people, though, said, no,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: you know you're wrong. Days confused as a weed movie.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: But let's say that as a weed movie, that's one
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: good one. Like Cheech and Chong movies are okay, but
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: they're really not that good. They really uh cocaine movies,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I don't are there cocaine movies? Yeah, there's like Blow
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: was a cocaine movie, and yeah about dealing, Yeah for
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: sure blows about as cocaine movie as they get. I
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: can't think of one that's just straight up like following
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: some cocaine users. Yeah, like that because it's probably like
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: no one wants to see that, right. But heroin movies
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: are great, well, I mean you got what spotting, oh,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: panic in Needle Park Train, spotting to see um and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and you know if even if it's not about heroin
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: stuff like pulp fiction, like I think heroin has been
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: romanticized in film, uh, far more effectively and more often
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: than any other drug, right, which is pretty messed up,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: because if there is a drug out there where Nancy
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Reagan actually was right for once in her life and
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: wasn't just lying through her teeth, it is definitely definitely heroin. Yeah.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: It is a genuinely bad, bad drug and basically the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: last thing that should be romanticized. Um, But you're right.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I think they've made some pretty good movies about it,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: and I think people are like, Wow, those jazz cats
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: are really into that that skag man um. And uh,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I can't imagine that there
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: aren't people out there who haven't tried heroin because it
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: was romanticized in the movies. I hate to say, yeah,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And I think because in the movies it's you know,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: it portrays it as it is, which is euphoric and relaxing.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: And you know, every movie you see when someone does
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the heroin, uh, what you see right afterward is a
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: big wave of of happiness wash over them. And that's
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: why you don't see movies about people snorting cocaine, is
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: because it's just not fun to see someone snort cocaine
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and then talk incessantly like a jerk for the next
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: four hours. You're right, right, depending on how much you got.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I've never done heroin, but I do know that its
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: chemical name is diah morphine, And we can't talk about
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: heroin without talking about morphine because it's kind of almost
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the same thing. Well, it's morphine's baby, Yeah, basically, it's
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: it's you can take morphine. Great band name, run it
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: through morphine, Morphine's baby. It is kind of and I
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: think about it. Remember that band Morphine? They were really good.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I love Morphine. Yeah, they were great. Um what kind
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: of music would they be classified as? They're not quite grunched,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: They're not quite metal. Now, Morphine was very chill okay,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: but they had like a real heavy guitar sound, right,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: lots of feedback and distortion. No, I think you're thinking
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: of a different band. Morphine had the saxophone as like
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: one of the main interest instruments. Unless I'm thinking, yeah,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: you're thinking of Chicago at any rate. No, morphine is
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the parent of heroin. Um. You take morphine and run
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: it through a few hoops with some acids, and all
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: of a sudden you have heroin. And they apparently are
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: so close together, um that the average user couldn't tell
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the difference between the two, because your body basically takes
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: heroin and turns it into morphine. The biggest differences are
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the um, the how long the high lasts. It's much
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: shorter with heroin, but I think it it sets on faster,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: and then the addictiveness heroin is even more addictive than morphine,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: and morphine is awfully addictive itself. Heroin is apparently just
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: in a whole different league as far as addictiveness goes. Yeah,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: that's what I've heard, uh, And that's certainly how they
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: portrayed in movies as well. To be fair, it's like
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: it's although there are movies that show, like pulp fiction
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: is a good example of a functioning heroin addict, but
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: usually that's not the case in a movie. No, it's true,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and I mean m yeah, they usually do show how
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: just kind of gross it gets for heroin addicts. There's
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: it's it's rare. It's rare that it's it's not that
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: part isn't included. Like think about, um, what was the
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: name of that movie. It's Jared Leto and word reccoim
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: for a Dream. Yeah, that was harrowing. I always say
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: I got pink eye from watching that movie with that
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: dirty dude. Oh man, that's a perfect way to say it.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's who can forget the one image of
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: the when he injected into that festering sore. Yeah, the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: abscess of I think I came across something that I
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: think is what it was. It's called wound botulis um uh.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: And that's a that's a side effect, a risk of
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: of heroin um, which I mean, if you think Heroine's glamorous,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: just look up wound botuli is um or gang green
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: or an abscess from injection site. And also fact, if
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: you're thinking about doing heroin, do that um reccoi. And
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: for a Dream is also a good example of why
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: they don't make movies about cocaine and speed because the
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: probably the most unsettling aspect of that movie is the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: the subplot with or the plot line with Ellen Burr
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: with Ellen Burst. It was hard to watch. It was
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: very hard to watch, although some parts of it were
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: pretty funny, like when the TV is just straight up
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: talking to her. That was hysterical. That in that movie
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: was nuts. Okay, So back to heroin. UM, there's apparently, uh,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: there is a very pure form of heroin, which makes sense.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, any kind of processed drug like cocaine or
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: something like that, Um, there's going to be a purest
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: form of it, but far and away the vast majority
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: of people who use that drug are never going to
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: encounter that purest form. It gets cut and there's impurities
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: that are introduced to make it less pure so you
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: can sell more. Um. And so the heroin goes from
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: like this off white kind of slightly grayish color to
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: everything from like orange and brown to black. Um, like
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: black tar heroin like one of the most famous heroin
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: varieties ever, from what I've heard, is comes from Mexico,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: and it's just really bottom of the barrel stuff. Like
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: imagine that the purest form is a almost white powder
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and you're shooting black tar. That kind of gives you
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: an idea of how far from purity black tar heroin is. Yeah,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I saw that that black tar heroine is usually cut
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: with either burned corn starch or lactose. Great. There's also
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: there's cheese heroin too, which is supposedly um, pretty rough
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: as well as far as impurities go. But it also
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: just sounds gross like cheese heroin. Yeah. Why did why
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: take a word that's great like cheese and screw attach
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: it to heroin? That's right? Uh. The other ways it
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: can be sold, which I didn't know. It can be
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: sold as a salt, which you know how in movies
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: if they're ejecting it, they always cook it up in
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: the spoon, And I think part partially why movies glamorize
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: it is because just cinematically, to shoot, um, to film
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: someone cooking something in the spoon and in the whole
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: process is just you know, it's interesting looking, it looks
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: good on screen, looks so glamorous. It does in a
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: little in a weird way. Um. But when you sell
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: it as a salt, it does not need to be
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: heated and dissolved. It's just I guess you can just
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  Speaker 1: dissolve it like salt will dissolve in water. Um. You
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: can smoke it, you can snort it, you can put
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: it in your butt. You sound like um. Like Chris
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Farley and Black Sheep, I never saw it. There's this
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: part where he's like shooting, snort and smoke and drop
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: and I've just I've seen too much Chris Farley in
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: my life. He's yeah, he's constantly in my head. Or
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: you can eat heroin apparently, yeah, especially cheese heroin. Oh
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: really okay. Um, So that's there's like a bunch of
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: different kinds of heroine you can get depending on where
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: you are. It's going to come from different places in
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the world, which we'll talk about. Um. And there's no
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: denying it gets you super duper high when you when
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: you do Heroin. UM. The problem is is that within
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: a few hours of that, you start to enter Heroin withdrawals.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And we'll talk about exactly what goes on in the
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: brain a little more, but basically your brain is saying, oh,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: I need more of what you just gave me because
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I adjusted to life with that UM, with that level
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: of dopamine release that it triggered, UM, and now everything's
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: just horrid and black. And again, this can start in
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: just a few hours, depending on how many times you've
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: shot Heroin, how much of a dependence you've developed, how
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: much tolerance you've developed, and all these factors come together
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: to determine just how bad your withdrawal symptoms are. Yes, uh,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: you know, most movies glamorized Heroin for a little while,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: but then we'll also show the dark side, like you said,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: and usually will include a kicking Heroin scene. Yeah, very famously,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: very famously in Train Spotting when he rattles off that
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: list when he locks himself in his apartment, you and
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: McGregor enlists out all the things that he needs to
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: successfully kick What is the very funny I just pulled
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: it up here music, tomato soup, tint indigo mushroom soup,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: eight tins of a consumption cold ice cream, vanilla, one
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: large tub of magnesia milk, one bottle pharmacs, uh paracetamal, mouthwash, vitamins,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: mineral water, lucas aid, pornography, one mattress, one bucket for urine,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: one for feces, and one for vomitus. Yes, supposedly, after
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: a while, the withdrawal gets so bad that you just
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: can't get out of bed to to poop or pee
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: or vomit, but you're still going to vomit and poop
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: um withdrawal symptoms kicking, terrible diarrhea, terrible vomiting UM. And
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: it's the thing is is the withdrawal is almost never fatal,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: but it can be fatal. And it's not from the
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: withdrawal symptoms themselves, it's secondary to it. Like you're vomiting
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and peeing and um pooping so much that you can
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: become dehydrated, your electrolite balances can go off, and you
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: can die of heart failure because the electrical impulses in
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: your heart are no longer functioning correctly. But if you
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: know what you're doing, um and you especially do it
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: under medical supervision, you can have a far easier and
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: and um much less life threatening experience of kicking heroin.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: The good news is this, even if you are the
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the person who is most addicted to heroin in the
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: world right now, if you decided to kick it, you
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: have four to five or six really bad days ahead
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: of you before you're free of your heroin addiction. It's
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: that simple. Any heroin, Um, I want to keep saying
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: heroin addict, We definitely don't say that anymore. But any
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: person addicted to heroin walking around today, Chuck is just
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: a week away from being free of heroin. It's just
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: that that would be the worst week of their entire lives.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: But they can do it. Every single one of them
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: can do it. An entire physicians practices and um convalescent
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: centers and rehabs have been set up to medically assist
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: in making the withdrawal process, you know, easier and safer,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: so that it does increase the chance that they're not
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: gonna be like, forget this, I just need some heroin.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Everything will be fine again. Yeah, and um, you know
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: you're probably gonna get if you're under medical supervision. Some
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: sort of sedative or a drug that memics heroin. Um,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: most commonly, I think methodone. Yeah, it's like subox zone now,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: which is, yeah, it really binds tightly to your pioid receptors,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: so it blocks heroin when you're doing it. Um, so
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: you become less and less dependent on heroin. And then
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the subak zone is just much less addictive or habit form.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: And because it's just much less potent, so you can
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: get off of the subok zone after you're off of
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: the heroine. So why heroin makes you feel so good? Um? People,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: you know, we don't fully understand the brain chemistry, um
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: of exactly how that works. But uh, we do know
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that the chemicals, you know, once it gets in your brain,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the brain breaks it down into other chemicals, and those
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: chemicals um sort of just closed down the things that
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: normally regulate your dopamine. And so your brain makes a
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: bunch of dopamine right right, So you've got a bunch
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: of dopamine going. But it also affects other parts of
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: your brain too, to where say, um, you're basically imagine
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: your brain chemistry normally is that in this nice kind
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: of harmony? And then heroin comes in and just totally
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: over whelms it with a tidal wave of a dopamine. Well,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: your brain says, oh jeez, well, I need to to
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: up all of the production of all these other um
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: neurochemicals so that I reach homeostasis again, so that jack's
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: all the levels up. UM. And then when the heroine
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: dies back UM, because your dose is wearing off, your
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: dopamine levels drop, but then all these other levels are
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: still up, and all of a sudden, it's like your
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: brain is screaming in a in a crowded room where
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: everybody just stops talking, and it's just your brain screaming
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: now right, or like the music cuts off in your
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: brain was trying to talk loud over the music. It's
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: very much like that. And so some of these other
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: chemicals can produce some really unpleasant sensations. And the upshot
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: of it is that that dopamine, the one thing that's
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: making you feel really really good, is the one thing
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: that's truly lacking then because your brain isn't making it
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: naturally UM, it's making all this other stuff that makes
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: you feel quite uncomfortable, uh, in much higher amounts. And
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that's that's when you say, I need some more heroin.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: And the other thing is this, as your brain starts
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: making more and more and more of these other neurochemicals,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: you need more and more and more heroin to release
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: increasing increasingly larger amounts of dopamine just to get to normal.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: That's what they mean when they say, just to get
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: to normal, I have to do this much heroin, and
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: then I have to do even more to get high. Um.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: And that is what's called tolerance. And the more tolerance
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: you have, the worshier withdrawal symptoms are going to be.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Because that means when you stop with the heroine, the
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: levels of everything else are really really high, and the
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: dopamine is way back down in the basement. Um. And
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: that's that's basically heroin in a nutshell. Yeah, And you
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: know tolerance. There's tolerance for every drug in the world, uh, cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, everything,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: but um, it feels like heroine's. Um. It's just such
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: a dangerous game you're playing there with the tolerance levels
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: and then getting off and getting back on or more
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: so a little, probably more so than other drugs even
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: and then the well, the other thing that makes it
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: dangerous too is again, withdrawal itself is very rarely fatal,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: especially when it's assystematically. But um heroin itself is extraordinarily
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: dangerous too, because one of the big effects that it
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: has on your body is lowered respiration, so you aren't
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: taking very deep breaths any longer. You can actually die
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: of like carbon monoxide poisoning because you're not exhaling enough
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: carbon monoxides or you're not getting in enough oxygen and
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: you basically just stop breathing, or you die of hypoxia
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: because you're the heroin overwhelmed your ability to breathe. Basically,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: when you've done too much, when you've done a fatal dose. Wow. Yeah, alright,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: let's take a break and we will talk about the
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: super interesting history of heroin right after this. Okay, okay, so, uh,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: you know we've I think everyone sort of knows that
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: heroin to sort of big facts about heroin that are
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: super interesting that everyone always says is that heroin is
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: a brand name or a trade name, and that heroin
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: used to be readily prescribed kind of like cocaine was,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: uh in this case for for pain is a pain medication.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: And we're talking about the opium poppy plant, the pep
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: haber somna faron And since ancient Egypt is like at
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: least people have been used sing this to treat pain,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: this narcotic to treat pain. Yeah. Well, so if we
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: had just held with opium, I mean, it's you know,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: being an addicted to opium is bad enough, but the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: world would definitely be a much different place if we
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: just stayed with opium, just kept it natural, you know
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying. But no, no, that's how we do.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: We figure out ways to make things even more robust
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and more amazing. And so I think in uh, oh,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly when, but in the eighteen hundreds,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: definitely before the eighteen sixties, the German chemical company merk
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Uh isolated morphine from opium, so you didn't need all
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the other stuff anymore. You just head straight up morphine.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: And this was good and in one respect, like we
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: now had a genuinely powerful anesthetic, analgesic to where when
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: somebody was in a great deal of pain, say having
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: their leg amputated in a field hospital during the Civil War,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: you could give them morphine and they wouldn't suffer as much.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: So in that respect, it was really good. The problem
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: is we didn't understand addiction anywhere near like we do today.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: And so a lot of those people who got morphine
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: when their leg was amputated came back from the war like,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: where can I get some more morphine? I could really
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: use some right now, And morphine addiction became really pronounced
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: by you know, the eighteen seventies eighteen eighties in the
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: United States. Yeah, And there were a couple of big
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: years after this. Big big events happened in eighteen seventy
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: four and eight. In eighteen seventy four, there was a
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: chemist name C. R. Older, right, and he wanted to
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: transform morphine into something that wasn't as addictive. So he
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: tried this process where he um it was called acetylation,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: where he basically tried to cause it to react with
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: an acid to change the composition of it to make
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: it less addictive. He created diocetyl morphine, which is heroin,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and he gave some to his dog, as you do.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: And his dog did not fair too well, did not die,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: but almost did. He stole a stereo later and he said,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: you know what, Uh, this stuff is dangerous. I'm gonna
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: put it away. I'm gonna publish this paper. No one
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: really paid much attention to this paper until a man
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: named Einrich Dresser in for the Bear company, picked up
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: this paper and said, let me pick up where he
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: left off. Yeah, and he did and he can't he
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: He basically recreated that um dia morphine concoction and heroin
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: was born. He gave it to some test subjects. One
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: of them said that it made him feel heroich. Is
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: that how you would say it? Yeah? Hero ish h
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: g r O I almost there s h. Yeah. These
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: are Germans we're talking about here, so they love the
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: sh sound for sure. But but because um, I think
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: one thing we left off is not only does heroin
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: get you high, it also boost your confidence tremendously as well.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: And that's what that guy was describing. He felt high,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: he felt confident, and he described it as heroic. And
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: so that's where the trade name heroin came from. Was
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: um from Dresser basically saying, that's that's a great name
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: for this. Uh So I'm gonna call it heroin and
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: we will cure the world's morphine addicts of their morphine addiction.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: And funny enough, they did. Because everybody's like heroin is
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: a great way to treat morphine addiction. The problem is
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: is once they kicked morphine, they were super duper addicted
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: to heroin and they were even worse off than they
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: have been before. Yeah, it's funny the word heroin. It's
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: so so commonplace now you don't really think about it
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: being a trade name, but it totally sounds like a
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: trade name when you think about other drugs at the time,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Like it sounds like a modern sort of pharmaceutical and well,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: actually these days those names are just terrible. Like Dr
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: pinkel Whites feel Good oil was next to it on
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: the shelf, you know. Yeah, but now like pharmaceutical drug
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: names or they all try and work in uh well,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I guess they did that with heroin because it makes
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: you feel heroic, but they try and work in how
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: great it makes you feel into the name itself, Like, well,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I should name check anybody. I
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: can think of a few on the top of my head. Yeah,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: And they're like they all have to work the letter
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: X in. If X isn't in there, it's not gonna sell.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: That's like the mantra of the pharmaceutical And it's really
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: manipulative when you think about it, it's the dad they
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: teach you how to pronounce it to your doctor. So, um,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: they did these human trials of heroin, which were about
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: four weeks long of getting heroin as a patient. If
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: you had a cough or a sore throat, you felt
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: pretty great obviously. Um. Can you imagine just going and
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: getting like some heroin laws for a sore throat? Yeah?
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I wonder if those still exist anywhere. I'm probably not.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that everybody took them. I bet you there's, like,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: you know, buried in some attic drawer somewhere. Somebody's got
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: some heroin lossages from back then. So uh, bear said
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the drug is safe. Um, it's non habit forming. Will
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: even put that on the label. And here's the downside
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: is these analgesic effects last a few hours. So if
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: you've got if you're sick and you've got a coffin
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: sore throat, Um, you're you're gonna be taking this stuff
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: like four or five times a day for a couple
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: of weeks because it makes you feel good every time
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: you take it a few hours later it wears off.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: You take some more, and before you know it you're
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: addicted to heroin, right, I mean there's probably no drug
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: in the world where you do it just once and
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: you're automatically physically addicted or dependent on it, right, is
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: do people claim that to be true? Oh? Yeah, they
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: claimed about acid for goodness sake, like they like, yes,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: they say that about every single drug, Which is the
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: problem because if you are a brave soul and you say, well,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: it probably won't happen to me, and I'll see, I'll
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: see what it's like, and then you try it and
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: you find you're not addicted, you're like, oh, well they
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: were lying, I'll just go do some more. But if
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: you say something like you're probably not going to get
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: addicted the first time, but with a drug like heroin
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: in particular, you're really playing with fire every time you
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: do it, because you come that much closer to to
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: being likely to be addicted to it. Um, I think
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: it would make somebody maybe think twice before trying it
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: even that first time, rather than just trying to scare
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: them off like, um, you know, no, you're gonna be
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: addicted immediately and you're going to kill your parents kind
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: of thing, you know. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally don't don't
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: lie to people. So uh, the next decade kind of
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: comes and goes heroin. It becomes more obvious that it
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: was dangerous and that it was addictive. Bear continued selling
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: it um until about nineteen thirteen, UM, but as early
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: as nineteen o six that was something called the Council
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of Farm Recy, UH, Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Metal Medical Association, and it had there were warnings saying
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: like hey, heroin can get really addictive. Uh. In nineteen
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: o nine, and this is the full seven years before
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Bear quit selling it um nineteen o six, and then
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: in nineteen o nine, Uh, there were people the lawmakers
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: met in Shanghai with some doctors for the International Opian Commission,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: which I'm sure it was quite a party. Oh, it
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: was a ranger, and they said that you know what,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: opium and all these drugs related to opium are really dangerous.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: They're prone to abuse, and it's up to all of
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: you countries to regulate this via the International Opium Convention
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: at the Hague in nineteen twelve. But it's up to
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: you how you want to do this in your country. Yeah.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: It was opium and coca leaves and their derivatives and salts,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I think is how they put it. And they basically said, there, yeah,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: there's some real problems coming from these and we need
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: to we need to do something about it. Go figure
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: out how to do it. And so the United States said, oh,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: we've got this covered. We're gonna pass the Harrison Narcotics
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Tax Act, which is now these days just called the
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Harrison Act, and it basically established the War on drugs
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: as we understand it today. Way back in nur UM,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: do you remember our CIA dosing LSD Unsuspecting Americans with
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: LSD episode one of the best. Do you remember George White,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: like the guy who was actually running like the the experiments.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: He was one of those early UM drug agents, narcotics
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: agents who was you know, beating up addicts because of
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: the Harrison Act basically gave him the permission to um.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: And one of the things about the Harrison Act that
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: was so insidious, aside from the fact that the the
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: it kind of promoted this whole UM, this air of propaganda,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: like lying to people like, you know, telling people that
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: if you're if your wife tries hero when she's gonna
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: run off with the UM. You know, a black guy
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: or something like like that. Kind of that level of
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: propaganda of associating certain groups with certain drugs to scare
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: other people from taking those drugs, just horrific stuff that. Um.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: It also said almost explicitly, addiction is not a disease,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: So you can no longer use these drugs to help
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: somebody kick these drugs. So doctors started going to prison
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: like trying to help people kick heroin by giving them
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: like a heroine regimen to to help them ease off
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: of it. You would land in prison for that kind
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: of thing, and doctors did get thrown in prison for it. Yeah,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: and Ed made a really good point here, one that
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I had never considered. Um. Something else about the Harrison
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Act is you tend to think of like the old
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: days as being super conservative about things like drug use.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: But before they were made illegal, the drugs were still there,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: and drug people that were addicted to these drugs were
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: still there, but there wasn't the same stigma. They were
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: sort of, I mean, they were outcasts of society, but
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: they weren't criminals yet. They were people that still needed
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: help and that you could rehabilitate. Um And there was
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: I think some more compassion even but Harrison that comes along,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you're a criminal. Uh, And
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the only way to get these drugs is and keep
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: doing these drugs that you're addicted to, is by being
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: a criminal. And that created almost it almost created the
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: system that we're with today. Uh, this this war on drugs,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: which is has shown to not work. Right. It definitely did,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and that it's there are some reasons why heroin in
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: particular will always be really hard to eradicate and why
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the Harrison Act was kind of wrong headed. It set
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: everything out on the wrong foot. Was this idea that
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: if you can just punish people into not using heroin
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: any longer. Yeah, you can't do that. You can't, And
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: there's some reasons why you can't do that, because as
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: long as heroin is around, they're going to be people
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: who become addicted to heroin and who are addicted to heroin.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: And then if you couple that with the idea that
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: addiction is not a disease, so you should not get
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: any kind of medical treatment for it, and we're actually
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: going to arrest doctors who try. Then all you've just
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: done is create like a huge legal and moral quagmire
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: for your society. But that's what it did. But there
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: are some reasons why heroin will probably always stick around,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and that is, first of all, it's very easy to make, right. Yeah,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I mean you're sort of in a I mean it's
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: like with most drugs, you're in a lose lose situation
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: if you're trying to eradicate it because you can't start
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: at the user end that has shown to not work,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: like you said. And in the case of most drugs,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: you can't start at the processing end either, because like
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: you said, it's easy to make. Um, it's it's just
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: a chemical process at work. It doesn't rek wire super
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: expensive equipment. UM. That's why if you get busted, you
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: can either just ditch your equipment or pack it up
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: pretty quickly and take it with you. Um. It is Uh,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: it's just difficult to disrupt the process of actually making
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: the heroine. Yeah. Basically, if you could set up a
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: still for whiskey out in the woods, you could probably
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: make a heroin UM processing operation. The thing is, if
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: you're in like the Smoky mountains or something like that,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: you might set up your heroine processing operation then go, well, wait,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I need some opium poppies. Those are kind of hard
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: to come by in the Smokies, And you're right, it's
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: very hard to find opium poppies in the United States.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: That's one thing that the United States government and law
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: enforcement has done, has basically eradicated opium producing poppy plants
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: from the United States, except on the TV show Ozark.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: But I haven't gotten to the point yet to be quiet.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: But really now I haven't. The point is because I
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: ended up going on starting better call Saul, and now
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I'm super into that got you, um. But the problem
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: with that is that yes we are. We kept it
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: out of the United States. It's not here, but pop
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: poppies grow really well just about everywhere. And as long
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: as you have a country where officials who are supposed
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: to be watching whether people are cultivating poppies or not
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: can be bribed um poor people who can be forced
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: into cultivating poppies, or farmers who can be bought off
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: to to cultivate poppies. Poppies are going to grow, and
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: over time they have been eradicated from one place or another,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: but then they just kind of pop up somewhere somewhere
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: else around the world, and that part of the world
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: becomes the global supplier of opium for heroin processing. Yeah.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: I mean for most of the nineteenth century, China was
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the big leader and opium exports along with India. And
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: then World War Two comes along the drug train. It
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: kind of shuts down because shipping is just super restricted. Uh.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Communist Party takes over in China and they said no, no, no,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: we're not gonna We're not gonna do this anymore, and
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: they kind of stopped. It was really effective in China
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: isn't a big opium supplier ever since then. But then
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: it moved to what's called the Golden Triangle, which is Laos,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Minimar and Thailand UM as well as Golden Crescent, which
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: is different parts of the Middle East, but mainly if
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: we're talking opium production, we're talking about Afghanistan. Yeah, And
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: when the United States invaded Afghanistan, like one of the
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: one of the sidelines that was doing was destroying opium
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: opium fields and I guess it worked for a little while,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: but not really like we were carrying out drone strikes
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: on UM heroin processing facilities and basically did nothing to
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: disrupt the heroin trade. And then as fewer and fewer
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: US troops were in Afghanistan, the heroin just came back.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Opium poppies came back in, heroin processing came back, and
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: even more than the United States military was effective, the
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Taliban had been more effective before the United States went
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: into Afghanistan. When the Taliban basically ruled Afghanistan, Um, there
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: was very little opium production going on, and it actually
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: increased whether you the United States was there. And then
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: after the United States basically left Afghanistan, when the Taliban
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: came back, they were it was like Taliban free and easy.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: They started looking the other way on opium production and exactly.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: So that's another thing that's actually used kind of frequently,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: like where if you are buying heroin, you were probably
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: funding a terrorist group. It sounds ridiculous and made up,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: but it's actually probably true depending on where you are
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: in the world. Um, if you're in the United States,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: you're probably funding a vicious drug cartel because most of
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: the the opium that makes its way as heroin into
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the US comes from Mexico and Colombia, which I didn't
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: right Yeah, and the other of the global heroin supply
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: is coming from Afghanistan right now. But like we said,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: you know, you you squash it in one area, it's
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: gonna pop up in another. It's um, it's it's very
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: simple supply and demand, and it's never gonna change. Uh. Ed.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: In fact, this is he should totally trademark this line.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: He said, a war on drugs, it's like a war
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: on water when you know what's going to rain tomorrow.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Did he make that up? I don't know. I've never
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: heard it before. So let's say he really crystallizes it. Yeah,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: it's good writer for sure. Should we uh? Should we
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: take our final break here? You betch all right, We'll
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: be back with more heroin. Right after this, you mentioned
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: World War two, Chuck um, and that almost entirely shut
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: down because shipping was so restricted during World War Two.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Everybody was watching every ship, not just the United States,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: watching stuff that was coming into the country. People were
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: watching it going from one place to another. It might
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: get torpedo. It was just really tough to smuggle things
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: during World World War Two. And I read that the
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: same thing is going on now because of the coronavirus pandemic,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: because of things like shelter and place orders um or
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: restricted travel, that it's way way harder to smuggle or
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: even just ghost gore Um. Then it was before the pandemic,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: and as a result, they think a heroin drought is
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: is coming on or has already started, and so prices
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: are going to rise, and probably more and more people
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: who were addicted to heroin before the pandemic will come
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: out of the pandemic not not addicted to heroin anymore,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: but like they gave meth a try, and now they're
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: really into that. Have you ever heard the old kamal
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: anjiohnny bit about the Heroin plus Thailand all cold medicine. Yeah,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: refreshed my memory. It's been a while. Well that was
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: I can't remember. I think it has a name like
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: a designer drug or whatever, which was basically heroin and
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Thailand all cold medicine mixed. And he just says this.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: It was pretty early in his comedy career when he
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: was just doing stand up. But he just has a
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: very funny bit about the fact that he you know,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: you're already doing heroin, you're all and then then his
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: voice and everything is just so perfect, You're already doing Heroin. Yeah.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: I love that guy. He's one of my favorite people
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: on the planet. He's great he's a big movie star now.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: He is. Good for him. I'm glad for him. He's
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: he's a good dude. He did our one of our
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: variety shows at that time. He did killed It. Everybody
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: killed it that night if I remember correctly. Yeah, that
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: was a really good show. That was a lot of fun.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Josh Bierman and Nick Thune. Maybe Nick Thune performed, Uh
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: so did um Hampton youwt did some killer stand up,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: that's right, Gianni. And we had Nate Demo did a
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: little Memory Palace Live too. Yep. And um, what was
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the UCB group? I want to say Raw High, but
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: it wasn't raw Hide, it wasn't Comanche. Oh Convoy Convoy.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Did we have all of them on one stage? Yes, dude,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: one night. Yeah, that was a great show. That was
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: a great show. They didn't even need us. We were
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: barely there. We launched a million careers that night. Um,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: all right. So we were talking about supply and demand.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: That is always going to be a problem with the
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: war on drugs because, like you said that, you can't
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: arrest people into not wanting to do drugs. This just
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: proven to not be a deterrent when people want to
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: do drugs. They're gonna find them and they're gonna do them. Um,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: the supply is hard to eradicate because of all the
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: things we mentioned. You can't wipe out all the If
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: the demand is there, then they're going to find places
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: where the government is bribable or weak enough to plant
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: those poppy fields. And as long as there are desperate
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: people and poor people or people that are addicts, then
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: there will be drug mules and people that are willing
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: to either willing to smuggle the drugs or a cartel
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: who will hold your family hostage to force you to
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: smuggle those drugs. Can you imagine that being your reality today?
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Like right now, man, Like you're running across like a
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: desert right now with a bunch of heroin on you
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: because your wife is being held hostage, your wife and kid.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Like that's happening to you right this second. That happens
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: to people sometimes, like it's so rare, and especially here
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: like in the United States, it's just like such a
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: remote worry that there's no reason to lose any sleep
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: over it for you, But don't forget about the person
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: that that's actually happening to right now, And like how
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: what what? What? They must be thinking during that run
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: across the desert, like how stressed out are they? Like?
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: What are what's going through their head? I just I
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: can't imagine what it would be like to actually be
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: in that situation. Like when I imagine it, I imagine
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: it as you do, like experience a movie. It's remote,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: it's it's fictitious, it's it's um fantasy. These are characters.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: But when when I can just get my brain just right,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit of it floods in and it's
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: just overwhelming. How nuts and horrific that without experience would be. Yeah,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and I think that's something that uh well, I mean,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: I think if you're if you have a problem with
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: drug addiction, you're not considering a lot of things, but
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: certainly one thing that's probably the last thing you're considering
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: is how it got to you, how it got to
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: your dealer, and the devastation that it has wreaked along
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the way, you know, Right, Yeah, that's a that's absolutely true.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: I think that's an excellent point for people to remember.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: So Ed wrapped up this research with the something I'd
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: never really thought about about marijuana being a gateway drug. Um,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: we've talked about that, and a lot of people scoff
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: at that notion, but he makes a case here that
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: kind of makes sense that the system with marijuana in
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the nineteen forties and fifties, especially in the in urban areas,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: and with with jazz clubs and jazz musicians, it kind
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: of set up a system where heroin could find a
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: pretty easy entry point. Yeah, because it was coming in
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: largely from in the beginning of the twentieth century up
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: to the first uh well, I guess the forties and fifties.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: So at the beginning of the twentieth century it was
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: interrupted by World War Two, and then it came back
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: with a vengeance in the forties and fifties, and it
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: was being imported largely by um Asian people who didn't
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: know people outside of their community. So they figured out
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: how to connect with the jazz musicians who already had
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: pot friends, and the jazz musicians started turning their pop
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: friends on yeah, on onto heroin. And part of the
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: reason why heroin was able to kind of make such
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: entree into American culture, especially through this route, was that
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: all these people were not they weren't drug naive, they'd
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: used pot before, they smoke pot all the time. They
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: knew for a fact that it wasn't addictive, it didn't
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: turn you into a fiend like had been depicted hysterically
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: in this government propaganda against pot. And so all of
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: the warnings against heroin were probably just as full of
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: hot air too, and it just turns out that they
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: happened to be wrong this time. Yeah, and I mean,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: you know, the jazz scene was rife with heroin abuse. Uh,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Miles Davis and Charlie Parker and Ray Charles. Yeah, Ray
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Charles totally. It's kind of jazz. But yeah, he counts.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: I remember when Philip Seymour Hoffman Um, when he died
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: of a fatal overdose. I know they tried to pin
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: it on um a jazz guy is his dealer. Oh
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: really Yeah, super kind of throwback thing. But even still
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: today they're like, yeah, jazz people can't be trusted. They
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: love heroin. Billie Holliday was fully addicted to heroin. It
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: was it was all over the jazz community. Yeah, because again,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: so this is one of those things where you try once,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: try twice, and all of a sudden you're doing it
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: a lot more and you have to do more and
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: more and more. And if it's all around you and
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: everybody seems to be having a good time despite puking
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: their guts out first, um, you might give it a try. Uh,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: that's just super interesting. The idea that that pot was
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: connected as like this this gateway for America to heroin,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: because there's just such worlds apart Yeah and alcohol. I mean,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: if you look at the history of jazz, heroin and
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: cirrhosis are like two of the biggest factors and true
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: killing off jazz musicians, true dad interesting. One thing we
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: didn't really touch on, well two things. One that the
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: epidemic of fentanyl laced heroin, which apparently if you're buying
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: that on purpose it might be sold to you is
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: magic or budd ice o God. But fentanyl is about
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: fifty times stronger than heroin, so the fatal dose is
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: much much much lower. It takes way less to kill you.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: But if you don't know that you're buying fentinyl laced heroine,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: you're doing your regular dose of heroin, that fentinyl can
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: very easily kill you. And that happens a lot. It's
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: happening more and more. Uh, no idea, who's doing it?
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: They think it might be coming from China, but who
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: knows what the deal is with that. But that's one
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: big problem with heroin addiction is you might overdose. The
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: likelihood of you overdosing with the introduction of fentanyl is
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: way higher than it was before. I think the whole
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: thing really started to pick up steam about two thousand thirteen.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: And then the whole reason there's a heroin epidemic right
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: now in the United States, Chuck, is because the a
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: few pharma companies got America and a large part of
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: the world hooked on opioid painkillers like oxyconton, and the
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: government said, well, this is a real problem. We need
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: to get everybody off of opioids. So um Perdue Pharma,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: you need to make this OxyContin impossible to inject or
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: snort or whatever. And they did. They made oxyconton so
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: that when you crushed it, it turned into a gel
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: that you couldn't do anything with. Um and nobody could
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: get high off boxy cotony more. You couldn't find. It
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: was too expensive. It was just impossible to get. But
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: heroin suddenly made a huge appearance and it was cheaper.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: It did the trick. You could find it just about everywhere,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: and now, all of a sudden, combined with the two
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: thousand and eight recession and all of the despair that
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: that generated, there's a heroin epidemic in the United States
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: that's still raging and going strong. And we have a
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: lot of those pharmaceutical companies and the the agencies that
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: are supposed to regulate them more closely to to blame
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: for that. Yeah. I remember in college there was a
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: one year and it was probably don't even a year,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: but like one season where heroin kind of came through
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: town and in my crowd, like not my close friends,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: none of them did it, but I knew. I knew
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: a person through a person who had, you know, known
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: like very loosely socially that she o'deed and died from
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: heroin during this like several month period. But I just
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: remember it was being talked about a lot, and it
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: was just around and people were doing it, and uh,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: it never invaded my inner circle. But I just remember
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: that it was a kind of a scary time in
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: college when it kind of blew through and then kind
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: of blew back out again. It wasn't like a I mean,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there were always people that we're doing Heroin
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: at some point in Athens. But it was like a
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: thing for a little while. Yeah, no, it was. It
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: was always very hard to find it just basically non existent.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Um when I get the feeling, yeah, you know. And
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: then it started to really pick up steam in like
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: the mid two thousand aughts. I think, yeah, it's weird,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: but yeah, that's yeah. Heroin is a demon, Chuck, it
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: is a demon. And this girl was she was looking back,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: probably twenty two years old. What a waste man. Yeah,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: that's sad. Um, Well that's Heroin. Everybody, don't do it.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Don't do it. Just don't just go your whole life
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: saying I've never done Heroin. Not I'm all good. You're
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: not missing out on that much, Okay, okay. Uh. And
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: since I said that, it's time for listener mail. This
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: is about We heard a lot about peanut butter, that
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: has proven to be quite a popular and somewhat divisive
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: podcast episode. Uh. We did hear from most people that said, yeah,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: outside of America, a lot of people think peanut butter
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: is weird. We did hear from a few people in
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: England and elsewhere they were like, what are you talking about?
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Josh I love peanut butter like two people. Yeah, it
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: felt fairly anecdotal, but this is about neither of those.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: So this is from Daniel Volts in Louisville. Did you say, Danielson? Hey, guys,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: been listening for years, so all the great podcasts are
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: recently recently listen to peanut Butter and was greatly entertained
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: as a lifelong peanut butter lover. Jeff is my brand
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: of choice. Even convinced me to try peanut butter mayo sandwich,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: which was okay, definitely to put more mayo on there
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: next time. Yes you do. We heard from some butter
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: mayonnaise people who tried it, and we're like, man, I
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: didn't really like it, or I didn't get it so right.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's just me. While listening, I couldn't help but
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: think of the color blindness podcast you did, and how
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: cool it was to hear something uh be explained to
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: me because frankly, nobody ever cared to do so, and
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: as much as I love to learn, it never crossed
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: my mind to learn about it. You may be wondering
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: why I show about peanut butter triggered color blindness. Turns
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: out the rest of the world thinks peanut butter is brown.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: I cannot imagine opening a jar of delicious green peanut
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: butter and seeing a nasty brown substance, uh, resembling something
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I don't want to think about eating sometimes. Somehow I
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: thought this for eighteen years for anyone knew the true
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: color of peanut butter was green before anyone told him that.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I still get teased about thinking peanut butter as green,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: but to me, it's as green as green gets. Reality
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: really is just perception. It's amazing to me that the
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: world can be seen so differently through every single person's eyes.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Who know is how many different colors of peanut butter
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: there are out there. Thanks for the show, guys, you
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: keep my days interesting and entertaining. H p S. Your
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: marathon podcast help me uh know what to expect from
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: my first marathon and scared me to death, but I
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: did finish without the unfortunate issues that some people go
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: through during a race. Congratulations and that is Daniel Volts
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: from Louisville, Kentucky. Nice work, Daniel, Um, I don't know
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: about green peanut butter. I don't. I think the weird
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: orangey brown it is normally is my preference for sure,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: a K A peanut colored right. Well, if you want
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: to let us know how, um, something we talked about
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: triggered some interesting memory. That kind of thing really fascinates us,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: so we want to hear it. You can send it
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: to us in an email address it to stuff podcast
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: did iHeart radio dot com. Stuff You Should Know is
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works from what Podcasts.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: For my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: M h m hm