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TGJC Social Causes Fridays "Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World" 10June2022 Discuss

Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World.

Intro/Disclaimer: Jumping to end of Chapter 1 page 30 "the psychoactive revolution entailed required the massive exploitation of Labor." "... Plantation owners and Foreman drove bound laborers both indentured servants and African slaves to the point of death to produce sugar tobacco coffee and other drug crops but the labor exploitation assume many guises as elites learn to use drugs to control placate and fleece their workers ."

Segment One: Tobacco- Europeans with Columbus discovered Tainos Indians smoking tobacco 1492 and by 1575 became a "cash crop," by 1620 became global crop.

Cultivation in West Africa started by Portuguese spreading tobacco to India Java Japan and Iran they travel to Cylon Iran Central Asia created China Tibet Siberia ect.

Spread by sailors at taverns, brothels, varying ports. "Spanish English Dutch soldiers fighting in 30 years war introduced tobacco to German speaking-lands" in 1600s.

Not favored and people experienced harsh punishments: floggings, threats of death. "Nothing checked tobacco's progress" historian VG Kiernan called it " the most universal new pleasure human beings have acquired that if triumph overall legal obstacles offended sensibilities"

By mid 1800s tobacco became popular again. widespread military use helped spread. Advertising " Reach for a Lucky instead of a Sweet."

Segment Two: Caffeine- World's number one most used drug. 4 Great Caffeine Plants: Tea, coffee, cacoa, kola. Coffee became most important caffeine plant began in Ethiopian Highlands then to Yemen. Europeans made coffee a worldwide crop


Original Coffee houses seen as suspect and shut down by clerics. Many coffee houses doubled as drug emporiums serving chocolates, strong drinks, tobacco.

Tea indigenous to region where India and China meet. By 815 confirmed use of tea in Japan. Dutch imported tea to Europe in 1610. April of 1887 British imported more Indian and Ceylonese tea than China.

Cacoa another important African crop. 1828 Coenraad Johannes Van Houten Dutch Chemist patented process to make cocoa . West Africa became world's largest producer of cocoa by 1991

Kola nuts also produced in West Africa. Richer in caffeine theobromine another stimulant. Kola became ingredient in medicinal "soft" drinks. Vin Mariani: Coca Wine in 1860's. Pemberton's French Wine Cola, removing the wine for prohibition. Transitioned it to a "Temperance" Drink. 1903 successor removed the coca due to spike in crimes associated with it. Replaced with crystalline caffeine powder extract from refuse tea sweepings.

Dr. Harvey Wiley took Coca-Cola to court in 1911. Wiley defined drug habit as, " The taking of any stimulating exciting drug which has no food value and which produces directly excitation of any of the organs of the body or nerves controlling them in such a way as to suggest or compel a repetition of dose."
"... Declaring caffeine to be a dangerous and unlabeled additive in a product market it and sold to children. After a lengthy litigation the company reduced the caffeine content by half."

Robert Woodruff of Coca-Cola made sure to supply US troops with a nickel cola anywhere in the world. GI's introduced Coke to millions of Europeans and Asians.

Tea, coffee, kola, cacao, guarana and other caffeine drinks only popular due to stimulating effects. Pg. 27, "Dr Harvey Wiley had a point no caffeine no Coca-Cola phenomenon. Caffeine wasn't essential booster stage in the rocket of drugs that lifted coca cola into planetary orbits an orbit sustained by cleverly exploiting its status as American icon and embodiment of the western consumer lifestyle."

Segment Three: Production and Consumption of sugar and history of psychoactive drugs linked in many ways. Sugarcane cultivation started in New Guinea or Indonesia spreading to ancient China.

Pg. 27 "after 1550 the combination of abundant rainfall for the soil and slave labor made possible the rapid expansion of sugar and molasses production..."

Most do not see Sugar as a "Drug." Parents who claim it makes their children hyper, diabetes and other health related issues to sugar. Others claim potent medicine, exotic spice. Used to sweeten teas, coffee, chocolate, main ingredient in rum, used to preserve flavor in tobacco and demand increased in distilling.

The taste for sweetness is universal. "It was also a key commodity in the slave trade that provided the labor which produced the sugarcane in the first place. Between 60 and 70% of all transplanted African slaves ended up in the European sugar colonies."


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