All Hopped Up: Show Segments
The following are individual show segments from the BackStory episode “All Hopped Up: Drugs in America,” broadcast in January 2013. You can listen to the entire episode here.
Reefer Madness in Mexico City
Historian Isaac Campos traces the origins of the idea that marijuana causes violent madness…and finds the trail leads south, to Mexico.
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Just Say No
When a dozen-odd states decriminalized marijuana in the 1970s, one group of determined parents pushed back. Brian, Ed, and Peter chat with historian Emily Dufton about what that episode means for decriminalization today.
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Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Peter talks with historian Anne Foster about how the Philippines – and some embarrassing international conferences – shamed the US into passing its first federal narcotics ban in 1914.
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Mother’s Little Helper
Historian David Herzberg and Brian discuss how feminists transformed Valium from a wonder drug to a symbol of medical sexism.
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Just What the Doctor Ordered
Peter, Ed, and Brian riff on doctors’ attempts to root out dodgy patent medicines in the early 20th century.
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Watson, the Needle!
BackStory producer Chioke Ianson tells the story of how Sherlock Holmes kicked his coke habit…with a little help from his American fans.
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The Drugs They Carried
Historian Jeremy Kuzmarov and former Drug Czar Jeremy Jaffe take us inside one drug panic of the 1970s: the fear that troops in Vietnam were high on heroin.
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