WEBVTT - Faded 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.160 All right, we're scrapping the cute stuff and cutting straight 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:07.400 to the chase. I'm Dessa. This is deeply human. Today 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:10.280 we're talking about drugs and we're already like five and 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:17.720 a half seconds in. Let's go hit it, James. Could 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.240 we speed it up a little. I've just I've just 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:22.320 got like an insane amount of stuff to get to 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:26.800 in this episode. Great, thank you. Hey, come on, man, 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:29.720 don't speed me. You know that always makes me dizzy, 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.879 and you know it, okay. I work as a touring 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.400 musician where it's not considered unprofessional to drink on the job. 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.800 In fact, taking a slug of whiskey on stage often 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.479 elicits a round of applause. This business is full of fascinating, 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:48.400 brilliant weirdos, and intoxicants are easy to get and sometimes 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:52.080 hard to avoid. Alexis Stevenson, an author friend of mine, 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.240 once told me I'm not a writer, I just drink 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:57.960 a lot about it, which I immediately cribbed for a 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:01.920 song lyric. Sub instants, use and abuse is sort of 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:04.759 baked into the culture. And that's true at the indie 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:07.720 level and for the A listers. To quote the late 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.679 great Robin Williams, cocaine is God's way of saying that 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:15.600 you are making too much money. Even being so surrounded 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.319 by it, there is still something that's sort of paradoxical 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.600 about drugs to me, not just the many hazards of abuse, 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.640 but the very idea of drugs. Isn't every organism supposed 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.600 to be out here fighting for survival. Wouldn't getting messed 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.360 up slower reflexes and make us worse a hunting or 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.560 escaping whoever is hunting us? Why would we choose to 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:39.040 regularly impair ourselves? And even if you don't drink or smoke, odsar, 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.360 you probably had the occasional cup of coffee or tea. 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.759 Caffeine is the most commonly used psychoactive drug in the world, 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.640 So the question of the day why do we use intoxics? 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.919 My name was Marikaniac. I am a post doctoral research 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:04.520 or at the University of Salford near Manchester, and I 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:09.000 study primates and how they have adapted to eating different foods. 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.560 Primates includes us, right, yes, that's right, we are premates. 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.919 It turns out that people primates have a particular genetic 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.079 advantage when it comes to digesting alcohol a k A 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.640 ethanol Marika says we may have first developed a special 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.840 interest for alcohol when we transitioned from being tree dwelling 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.320 creatures to a more terrestrial lifestyle. When we started living 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:31.600 on the ground, we were more likely to come across 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:34.960 fallen fruit. When fruit becomes overripe and has a lot 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:37.760 of sugar in it, what tends to happen is that 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:42.399 yeasts get in there, and yeast will start to eat 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:46.320 the sugars, and the end product of that is ethanol, 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.280 a substance that smells really strongly, right, so it could 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:54.400 be almost like an advertisement. It's like this this odor plume. 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:57.720 It's like, there's sugar here, Eat me. And we have 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.320 a particular genetic advantage that allows us to process that ethanol, 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.160 meaning we can potentially eat more energy rich fruit. There's 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.360 this mutation that humans have, and what's interesting about this 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:12.760 mutation is that it makes our ethanol metabolism really really efficient, 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.640 like forty times more efficient. Early hominids may have been 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.360 attracted to boozy stuff because it was a reliable source 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.560 of energy. Genetic evidence implies this mutation may have surfaced 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:26.360 ten million years ago, though it could be much longer too, 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.600 and it's not only primates who are interested in this fruity, 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:39.120 boozy business. The big story, the most famous story, is 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:44.720 that elephants go for these fermented marilla fruits. And it's 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:47.280 a story that's so widespread, like it's brought up in 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:51.120 these pursures for Safari's. There's a famous liqueur that's made 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.440 out of marilla fruits. It's called Amarilla. Amarula is a 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:56.880 lot like Bailey's. I have toured South Africa, I have 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:00.200 headed over ice and it is awesome. I have all 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.080 heard the stories of elephants totally lit up on fermented 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.480 marula fruit, stumbling around and making a mess of themselves 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.560 like a thirty ton bachelor party with tusks. But humans 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:14.840 want to see is that elephants want to become intoxicated. 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.160 They want to get not the sugar, but they want 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:22.000 to get the side effects. And it's like this intentionality aspect. 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.039 It's really really difficult. But how do you prove that 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.160 an animal is trying to get faded and not just 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:32.000 give food. So there's one to study with um something 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:33.960 called an i I. It's a it's a type of 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.560 lemur from Meta Gascar. They're they're so cool looking and 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:38.840 they're really cute um that well, it's in the eye 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:40.880 of the beholder. I think I think they're cute. Some 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.920 people don't agree. Wait, hold on Google Google search. They 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.760 have very large ears, and I don't know good about it. 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.640 I don't like that. But they have great tails, save 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.599 these grape bushy tails. And they have this amazing middle 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:00.839 finger that's all along and spin delete that they used 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.880 to tap on tree trunks with to find hollow parts. 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:06.920 And then when they found a hollow part, they gouge 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.760 it and usually there's some kind of big bug or 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.799 grub in there that they pull out with their spindle 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:16.640 a finger and then eat. But they don't just eat bugs. 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.480 They also eat a lot of nectar. And the nectar 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.599 that they consume you can tell there's ethanol in it 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:26.760 just from smelling it. When researchers gave eye eyes the 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:30.320 choice between an alcoholic mixture and just plain water, they 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:32.920 drank twice as much as the booze. And in a 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.360 study on elephants and alcohol, researchers allowed them to drink 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.760 from a boozy trough then took detailed notes on their behavior. 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.400 The things that they wrote down were like swaying and 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:49.919 increased vocalizations and increased aggression, which it's like, are you 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.440 looking for those things because that's what humans do? Or 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:59.920 you know, is that really how the intoxication manifests? Why 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.520 the animals only have access to alcohol when they come 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:06.640 across naturally fermenting sugars or I guess research teams who 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:08.919 are willing to fill up a trough with booze? But 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.440 when did people start making alcohol on purpose? So? I 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.760 mean this is when we get into archaeological evidence, which 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:18.840 I think it's amazing. It's just so cool that you 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.440 can get residues from things that are thousands of years 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:24.920 old and and find evidence that you know, these were 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:29.599 used ferment beverages. So it goes back like about ten 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.839 thousand years that we have evidence of humans intentionally fermenting 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:39.039 foods and beverages. Fermentation practices might go back even further, 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:41.320 but that's hard to prove. Like if a pot was 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:45.520 made of wood, it might not survive millennia to be discovered. Okay, 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:49.160 let's transition now from prehistory to the bleeding edge of 0:06:49.200 --> 0:07:08.240 scientific investigation. My name is David Nattimer, a psychiatrist. I'm 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.760 a psycho pharmacologist, so I studied effects of drugs on 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:16.000 the nervous system and the psychological consequences of those. David 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.440 is an internationally recognized veteran in his field. He spent 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.320 ten years advising the British government on how to create 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:25.280 a rational approach to drugs and how to minimize their harms, 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.920 and in the UK he's also known for controversy. He 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.200 was dismissed from his position after arguing that alcohol was 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:34.800 more harmful than a host of other drugs, and to 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.080 illustrate the relative dangers of taking the drug ecstasy, he 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.880 noted that it was no more dangerous than horseback riding. 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:44.960 I'd probably given more different classes of drugs to human 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:47.520 beings and possibly anyone ever in the history of the world. 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.280 I mean, there's almost no class of drugs that I 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:55.920 haven't studied in humans, and humans use a bunch of drugs. 0:07:56.120 --> 0:08:01.200 I mean almost no human doesn't take any doctor, tea, coffee, alcohol, tobacco. 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:06.680 The God's population used and intoxicant or a brain changing 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:11.400 drive for some purpose, generally for benefits. I think, for example, 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:13.600 of the reason you might order a drink on a 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:21.360 first date. Alcohol makes you sociable, and it makes you 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:25.320 convivial and relaxed in companies enough to take away the 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.400 natural social anxiety we all have when we're meeting strangers 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:33.040 or go into parties. Stress is part of human and 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.520 animal experience. But then there's a second thing, which is novelty. 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:38.520 I mean, the human brain is a is a novelty 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:41.880 seeking or you know, humans fascinated by new things, which 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:44.000 is why we are so successful in the world. Because 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.040 we've discovered new things, and we've remembered them, and we've 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:51.439 adapted them and reinforced them. There's something fundamentally appealing and 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:56.040 feeling our consciousness temporarily transformed into something less familiar than 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.520 our work day minds. Alcohol has been used in military purposes. 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.199 People ink before they fight because the alcohol dampens down 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.120 the fair response. The reason alcohol is so popular has 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:08.439 been so popular for so many thousands of years, is 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.360 a really good drug and gets in fast and gets 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:15.280 in the brain fast. You know, it's reliable in terms 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:22.400 of what you get. The effect is those related. My 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.320 very first taste of alcohol was probably a sip of 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:30.920 a relative's Manhattan cocktail. I was maybe eight. It was gross, 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.160 and I drank it anyway as a demonstration of my worldliness, 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.920 not too long afterwards, I would have sipped wine from 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.800 a heavy metal goblet held by a priest at Catholic mass. 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.440 Communal drinking is often a rite of passage socially and 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:50.400 sometimes religiously, And pretty soon I was a sneaky teenager 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.040 trying to weasel my way into the liquor cabinet at 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.920 my friend Katie's dad's house. We poured a little bit 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.960 from every bottle to create a seriously unfortunate slurry that include, 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:07.199 among other things, mid Doory whiskey and Bailey's Irish Cream. 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:10.679 So how does alcohol actually work? What is it doing 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:14.839 to us? David Nutt explains that it affects several pathways 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:19.520 in the brain, and it mimics a particular neurotransmitter called gabba, 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.000 and in humans and all out of primate wear, in fact, 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:27.200 pretty much all vertebrates, Gabba calms the brain. Another neurotransmitter 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.520 called glutamate has the opposite effect. It revs you up. 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.959 And both substances are always at play in your brain, 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:35.760 and it's almost like your your brain is walking the 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:41.160 tight rope. Too much glutamate and you become hyper excited, 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:43.640 and then you end up getting anxious or having a seizure, 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.319 and so gather protects you against that. But too much 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:51.520 gabba you fall asleep and then you get eaten with 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:55.400 a tiger. So you've got to get the balance right. 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:00.120 When people drink, it's like they're putting a thumb on 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.880 the scale, suppressing anxiety by blunt chemical force. But of 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:08.480 course there are diminishing returns. To share a little poem 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.760 from the writer and Total Boss Dorothy Parker, I like 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.280 to have a martini to at the very most, after three, 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.320 I'm under the table. After four, I'm under my host. 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.920 Alcohol impairs judgment and cognition, and it can have life 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:29.480 destroying chronic consequences, disease and addiction among them. To quote F. 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:33.560 Scott Fitzgerald, First you take a drink, then the drink 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:38.839 takes a drink, Then the drink takes you. Our psycho pharmacologist, 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.560 David Nutt has been in the field of substance abuse 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.240 for almost forty years. I'll give you an example. One 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.160 of the recent patients of mine and his life was 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.440 to get up in the morning and he'd get a 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.280 bus up the road to the supermarket. He'd buy two 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:58.160 liters of strong cider, which is about two weeks worth 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.040 of alcohol and the just sit there all day and 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.640 drawing that, and he was destroying himself. And that's really 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.640 quite common people drinking alone and or they're using alcohol 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:09.760 then as an anesthetic to deaden the pain of their 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:13.280 lives rather than getting any benefit from it. People suffering 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.960 from addiction using toxic ins because it feels like they 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:21.640 have to. Some people cite the dangers of booze in 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.440 an argument for abstinence, but David is working on inventing 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:30.040 a new drug, an alternative to alcohol. Alcohol works on 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.480 multiple neurotransmitter systems. It's also a poison, you know. It 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.160 damages your deliver in your heart and your blovelesss. Accential 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:43.319 alcohol is like playing a piano with boxing glob zone. 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.559 David has a lab team working to design a chemical 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:51.680 substance that can imitate the gabba effective alcohol without wreaking 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:53.800 as much havoc on the rest of the system, like 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.200 a proper piodist that plays the song and then goes home. 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.000 It's not done yet, but in the meantime he's created 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:04.080 and bottled a prototype that can be concocted from herbs 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:09.640 already on the market as food stuffs. I met him 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:12.040 in a corner bar in West London to try something. 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.280 This is a botanical spirit that it's called Centia, and 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.120 it's made of herbs and a combination that will give 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:24.160 you an effect like a low dose of alcohol, like 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:28.439 maybe a glass of wine, without having anything like as 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.240 much impact on the rest of your body. Cheers, cheers. 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:34.800 The very first thing you notice about Sentia is the color. 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.680 It's a burgundy that very much appealed to the vestigial 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.560 Goth teenager in me. And it's a water based drink, 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.480 but to create some of that like alcohol heat on 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:46.680 the exhale. It has a little bit of pepper in 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:50.240 it Christmas ee, you know, has that sort of clothy 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.040 aspects of it. And then in a few moments, I 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.319 hope you'll feel that is beginning to have the other 0:13:57.360 --> 0:13:59.360 effects of our not just the mouth effects, but also 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:04.000 the brain effect. I admit that I didn't really feel 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.120 a buzz after drinking Centia. I didn't go in very 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:09.000 hard though, because I was afraid to muck up my 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:13.000 interview with this very accomplished science guy. David hopes the 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.040 one his new compound hits the market, it might shake 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:18.959 up our whole drinking culture, which is a tall order 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:23.680 because that well runs really deep. We just so happened 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.400 to have a cultural historian at this little mixer to 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:30.280 tell us all about it. Angela McShane researches the history 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.920 of intoxicans and she has some insight on why we 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.360 use them and how they fit into our culture at large. 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.000 She recently curated an exhibit on drinking vessels at the 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.920 Victoria and Albert Museum from tusday to welcome h VNA 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.160 in London. The v N A, if you haven't had 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.800 a chance to visit, feels palatial, marble staircases, super high 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:55.000 ceilings and display cases that are the cleanest glass I 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:57.840 have ever seen. And I know glasses clear, but this 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:02.000 was like clearer on the air around it. It's just 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:06.360 it's just really so clean. Angela's display features rows of 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:11.040 drinking vessels from heavy metal chalices too delicate Venetian glass. 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:13.840 The idea of the drink display was here was much 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:18.040 more about what are the concepts behind drink in particular, 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.880 how did it connect sit with the society. Why did 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:24.680 people feel the need to drink, Why did they often 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.560 feel the need to drink too much? For tracks of 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.720 our history, drinking was not an off hour's indulgence. It 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:33.360 was a pre wreck for civic engagement. One of the 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.240 things about the putting this story is the objects together 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:39.920 was to indicate that drink was at the heart of 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.760 every part of the state. If you're going to demonstrate 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.000 your loyalty to your lord, whether that's an empress or 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:49.400 whether that's your landlord, the chances are you're going to 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:51.440 need to have a drink with them to prove that. 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.200 If you're going to go to church, then you're going 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.960 to drink quine. There's also a lying history of competitive 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.640 social drinking. Way before a beer pong, people were egging 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.880 each other on and ribbing one another, and real invested 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.720 in making sure everyone was keeping pace with one another. 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.040 There's a phrase called taking somebody down a peg or two. 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.600 It's actually a peg peg tankards. I didn't know the 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.320 word tankred before kicking it with Angela at the museum. 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.000 So if it's a new term to you, imagine like um, 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.960 like a heavy beer mug, but made out of metal 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:29.080 and with a hinged lid on top. When you open it, 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.120 what you can see inside is little pegs, light little 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:37.160 pins in the tankard down where the handle is, and 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:41.640 these mark off different measures of drink. And that's because 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.200 all of these objects are intended for sharing. And the 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:48.640 idea is that you measure off one peg, two pegs, 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:50.600 and you've agreed with the people that are drinking with 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.320 you how many pegs are going to drink. And often 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.400 it can turn into a competition, of course, because they 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:59.240 all say, let's see you drink three pegs in one go, 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.880 let's see drunk. So so then it becomes a game. 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.440 And so to take somebody down a peg or two 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.760 is literally to take them down the pegs in the tankerd. 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.879 This emphasis on drinking together and ensuring that everyone drinks 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:19.919 their share goes back thousands of years. The phrase in 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.760 Vino veritas is often credited to Plenty the Elder, a 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:28.440 Roman statesman, and it's quoted by Plato in his text Symposium. 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.639 You may have heard it translated to means something like 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:35.000 in wine there is truth. But what it means is 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:37.640 when you read it within the context of his book 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:42.560 The Symposium, that because people will say things they wouldn't 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:46.000 have said if they weren't drunk, everybody has to be 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:50.199 drunk together. And what happens in the room stays in 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:55.840 the room. Obviously, many people choose not to drink for 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.720 personal reasons, health concerns, or to abide by the mandates 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:05.760 of their faith. Alcohol, for example, is forbidden in Islam. Okay, 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:10.080 So in present day Iran, what is the what is 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:14.760 the legal position on intoxican irnly is quite easy. Everything 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:19.040 is illegal, even beyond intoxication. You know, your sexual relationship 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.240 before marriage are illegal. So every and everything you can 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.080 think about that is you know, you know, even fouly 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:31.320 cool it's is illegal. So I'm Mazzi Mazzi for Friends 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.400 and Enemies. I am an academic at the University of Exeter, 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.840 and I've been working on things related to how people 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.879 intoxicate themselves and why they do so in in the 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:46.760 Middleast in particular. Mazzi grew up in Iran, then moved 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:49.639 to Italy, but has returned to Iran for research trips. 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:52.800 He stresses that the laws on the books aren't the 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.520 laws on the boulevard. Total prohibition is not the reality 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.520 of life in Iran life under the law. It's it's 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:05.720 far ambiguous and ambivalent. Because everything is prohibited in a way, 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:09.280 everything is also allowed. So people really kind of do 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.360 all sorts of stuff. I mean, I've done things that 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:16.959 I wouldn't do elsewhere. It's easier to order, you know, 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:22.560 a little bag of math or any other drugs in 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:25.880 Tehran than toward the pizza, and pizza is pretty easy 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:32.080 to order. The total ban on drugs and the serious 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:37.639 consequences for getting caught change the social aspect of consuming drugs. Drinkers, 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:40.920 for example, can't simply lounge and linger in a bar, 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:43.840 and they're more likely to drink spirits than beer or 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.879 wine because more potent drinks are easier to transport and 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:53.280 self for profit. The first twenty minutes of a drinking 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:58.560 session are very different from whatever else you've seen elsewhere. 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:00.960 So there is a person who is in charge of 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:06.240 pouring whatever alcoholic drink is available. They call him soggy 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.919 or you know, men or women could be so there 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:13.120 is also the name for dealer, by the way, and 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.159 he pours the drink for everyone, making sure that everyone drinks, 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.000 and people tend to drink in the good not spping 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:27.240 you know, Russian way, but jams. Everyone's drunk. Usually, prohibition 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.280 laws are so commonly broken by so many people that 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.000 it would be outlandish for authorities to even try to 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:38.040 penalize everyone who did so. The law enforcement do what 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:42.960 they do basically everywhere. They can choose when they need 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.560 to intervene, but Mazzi says they often do so with 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:50.520 an ulterior motive. In Iran and around the world, drug 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:54.399 violations provide the state with a pretext to intervene in 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:56.960 the lives of people who have been flagged as risky 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:01.920 or problematic for other reasons. Consider, for example, the seventeenth 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:06.680 century Ottoman crackdown on coffee houses. Coffee was an exotic 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:09.360 substance when it arrived, you know, in the Ottoman Empire. 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:15.159 The whole culture of coffee drinking started around this new substance, 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:18.320 you know. And because they were also displaces, the coffee houses, 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.600 where people would meet and you know, discuss, there were 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:26.600 places which were seen as you know, definitely not conventional, 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:31.520 but also potentially dangerous in political terms, according to Mazi 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:34.159 and many of his colleagues. You know, in academia, you 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:37.679 would struggle to find anyone who supports prohibition because you know, 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.200 if you study drugs and addiction, there is no way 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:45.240 you can say that the current regime of drug prohibition works. 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:49.800 Your voice changes when you talk about prohibition like you 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:53.520 just sound hell a board. Is it just because it's 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:55.920 just an abject failure and there's nothing interesting to say 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:59.480 about it. Yeah, And so it's funny that he says, 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:04.280 so prohibition has been a total failure in Iran elsewhere, 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:11.240 you know, equally As a really little kid, I remember 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:14.800 seeing a public service announcement on TV, a warning about 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:18.560 the grave dangers of marijuana, which was prohibited then across 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:21.960 the US. I ran from the living room television set 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:25.040 to the kitchen and then back again, and found my 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:28.800 fears confirmed the glass object on the kitchen shelf was 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:32.600 in fact a bomb, which meant that one or maybe 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:36.520 both of my parents was a drug user. I ended 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:39.280 up in tears on my dad's lap. He admitted the 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:41.560 bomb was his and tried to soothe me with a 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:44.760 hug and some patient words. He asked if I thought 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:49.119 of him differently, and I told him yes, according to 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:52.160 the after school TV programming, he was a moral hazard 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:55.840 and a total deviant. But being my dad, he also 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:58.320 made the rules about bedtime and dinner menus, so I 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:02.840 didn't really have a light to stand on. Prohibition might 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.640 not be too effective, but it does say something about 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:09.560 the intensity of our motivation to use intoxicans. People around 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:12.439 the world are willing to risk serious consequences to get 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:15.439 drunk or high. Even if how we use them looks different. 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:18.919 It seems like we've got a really strong universal why, 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:22.800 and those drives are varied. When you're living Iran, a 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:25.600 lot of people have the feeling that they are basically 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:30.439 living in isolation from everything for everything that is happening 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:34.359 in the world, and that's interesting, you know, they feel 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:37.640 that they're losing out, and so drugs in a way 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:41.320 project you in a dimension which is still yours, you 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:44.119 know if they don't, and the dimension of your everyday life. 0:23:44.760 --> 0:23:48.600 But you're connected, like the people are being high in California, 0:23:48.720 --> 0:23:54.840 you're being high in Tehran. It's a mimicking act. We 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:57.879 use drugs to feel connected to each other. From communion 0:23:57.920 --> 0:24:01.439 cup to keg stand. We all do use drugs. We 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:07.800 do because fundamentally we try to feel better in the world. 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:10.840 Some of them are legal, some of them are illegal. 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:14.160 Some of them are prescribed by you know, our pharmacists, 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:17.640 and some you know that may be prescribed by our dealers. 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:22.520 We use intoxicans to blunt our anxieties to demonstrate our allegiances. 0:24:22.960 --> 0:24:25.040 We use them as part of our ceremonies and to 0:24:25.080 --> 0:24:28.520 compete and connect with one another. And of course the 0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:32.320 particular intoxicans we choose can also send messages about how 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:35.600 we'd like to be perceived. Like if a woman walks 0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:37.840 into a bar and shoots a double shot of tequila, 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:41.119 that just reads differently than if she asks for a 0:24:41.160 --> 0:24:45.639 glass of rose or a corps like tall Boy champagne 0:24:45.720 --> 0:24:49.800 is for celebrating Long Island ice teaser for utility. Some 0:24:49.920 --> 0:24:53.760 Irish whiskeys are shunned by Catholics and some shunned by Protestants. 0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:58.960 Smoking a Virginia Slim isn't the same thing as smoking 0:24:58.960 --> 0:25:04.040 a Marlborough Red or a Cuban cigar, And our appetite 0:25:04.080 --> 0:25:09.520 for intoxicants is intense. Listener, I don't relish relaying this 0:25:09.600 --> 0:25:12.680