WEBVTT - Faded 0:00:00.000 --> 0:00:03.159 All right, we're scrapping the cute stuff and cutting straight 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.360 to the chase. I'm Dessa. This is deeply human. Today 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:10.280 we're talking about drugs and we're already like five and 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:17.680 a half seconds in. Let's go hit it, James, could 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:20.200 we speed it up a little. I've just I've just 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:22.320 got like an insane amount of stuff to get to 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:26.639 in this episode. Great, thank you. Hey, come on, man, 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:29.680 don't speed me. You know that always makes me dizzy, 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.839 and you know it, okay. I work as a touring 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.360 musician where it's not considered unprofessional to drink on the job. 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:40.800 In fact, taking a slug of whiskey on stage often 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.440 elicits a round of applause. This business is full of fascinating, 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:48.360 brilliant weirdos, and intoxicants are easy to get and sometimes 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:52.040 hard to avoid. Alexis Stevenson, an author friend of mine, 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.240 once told me I'm not a writer, I just drink 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:57.960 a lot about it, which I immediately cribbed for a 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.920 song lyric. Sub stant's use and abuse is sort of 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.680 baked into the culture. And that's true at the indie 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.680 level and for the A listers. To quote the late 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.640 great Robin Williams, cocaine is God's way of saying that 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.600 you are making too much money. Even being so surrounded 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.280 by it, there is still something that's sort of paradoxical 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.560 about drugs to me, not just the many hazards of abuse, 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.600 but the very idea of drugs. Isn't every organism supposed 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.559 to be out here fighting for survival. Wouldn't getting messed 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:31.360 up slower reflexes and make us worse at hunting or 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.560 escaping whoever is hunting us? Why would we choose to 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:38.319 regularly impair ourselves? And even if you don't drink or smoke, 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.440 odds are you probably had the occasional cup of coffee 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:45.240 or tea. Caffeine is the most commonly used psychoactive drug 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:49.280 in the world, So the question of the day, why 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:58.640 do we use intoxics? My name is I am a 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:03.200 post doctoral research or at the University of Salford near Manchester, 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:07.920 and I study primates and how they have adapted to 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:11.280 eating different foods. Primates includes us, right, yes, that's right, 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.720 we are primates. It turns out that people primates have 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.480 a particular genetic advantage when it comes to digesting alcohol 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.640 a k A. Ethanol. Marika says We may have first 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:24.880 developed a special interest for alcohol when we transitioned from 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:28.639 being tree dwelling creatures to a more terrestrial lifestyle. When 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:30.840 we started living on the ground, we were more likely 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.480 to come across fallen fruit. When fruit becomes overripe and 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.000 has a lot of sugar in it, what tends to 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:41.400 happen is that yeasts get in there, and yeast will 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:44.760 start to eat the sugars, and the end product of 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:49.520 that is ethanol, a substance that smells really strongly, right, 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.720 so it could be almost like an advertisement. It's like 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.800 this this odor plume. It's like, there's sugar here, Eat me. 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:00.000 And we have a particular genetic advantage that allows us 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.519 to process that ethanol, meaning we can potentially eat more 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:07.160 energy rich fruit. There's this mutation that humans have, and 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.040 what's interesting about this mutation is that it makes our 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:14.800 ethanol metabolism really really efficient, like forty times more efficient. 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:18.280 Early hominids may have been attracted to boozy stuff because 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.840 it was a reliable source of energy. Genetic evidence implies 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.200 this mutation may have surfaced ten million years ago, though 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:29.600 it could be much longer too, and it's not only 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:37.040 primates who are interested in this fruity, boozy business. The 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.680 big story, the most famous story, is that elephants go 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:45.480 for these fermented marilla fruits. And it's a story that's 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.680 so widespread, like it's brought up in these psures for Safari's. 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.120 So there's a famous liqueur that's made out of marilla fruits. 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.560 It's called Amula. Amarula is a lot like Bailey's. I 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:57.840 have toured South Africa, I have headed over ice and 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:00.920 it is awesome. I have all heard the stories of 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.880 elephants totally lit up on fermented marula fruit, stumbling around 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.240 and making a mess of themselves like a thirty ton 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.960 bachelor party with tusks. But humans want to see is 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:15.800 that elephants want to become intoxicated. They want to get 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:18.160 not the sugar, but they want to get the side effects. 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:23.480 And it's like this intentionality aspect. It's really really difficult. 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:25.920 But how do you prove that an animal is trying 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:30.400 to get faded and not just give food. So there's 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.240 one to study with um something called an II. It's 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.560 a it's a type of lemur from Madagascar. They're they're 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.320 so cool looking and they're really cute. Um that well, 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:40.160 it's in the eye to beholder. I think I think 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:43.240 they're cute. Some people don't agree. Wait, hold on google, 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:49.839 Google search. They have very large ears, and I don't 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:54.680 know good about it. I don't like that. But they 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.240 have great tails, save these grape bushy tails. And they 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.920 have this amazing middle finger that's all along and spin 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.359 delete that they used to tap on tree trunks with 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.520 to find hollow parts. And then when they found a 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.640 hollow part, they gouge it and usually there's some kind 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.520 of big bug or grub in there that they pull 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.160 out with their spindle a finger and then eat. But 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:17.640 they don't just eat bugs. They also eat a lot 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:21.360 of nectar. And the nectar that they consume you can 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.000 tell there's ethanol in it just from smelling it. When 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.799 researchers gave eye eyes the choice between an alcoholic mixture 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.440 and just plain water, they drank twice as much as 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.600 the booze. And in a study on elephants and alcohol, 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.880 researchers allowed them to drink from a boozy trough then 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:42.040 took detailed notes on their behavior. The things that they 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:47.720 wrote down were like swaying and increased vocalizations and increased aggression, 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.200 which it's like, are you looking for those things because 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.640 that's what humans do? Or you know, is that really 0:05:54.680 --> 0:06:01.359 how the intoxication manifests while the animals only have access 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:05.120 to alcohol when they come across naturally fermenting sugars or 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:07.479 I guess research teams we are willing to fill up 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.400 a trough with booze. But when did people start making 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.080 alcohol on purpose? So, I mean this is when we 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.680 get into archaeological evidence, which I think it's amazing. It's 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:21.159 just so cool that you can get residues from things 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:23.960 that are thousands of years old and and find evidence 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:28.400 that you know, these were used ferment beverages. So it 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.240 goes back like about ten thousand years that we have 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:37.799 evidence of humans intentionally fermenting foods and beverages. Fermentation practices 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.200 might go back even further, but that's hard to prove. 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:42.240 Like if a pot was made of wood, it might 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:46.800 not survive millennia to be discovered. Okay, let's transition now 0:06:46.880 --> 0:07:05.400 from prehistory to the bleeding edge of scientific investigation. My 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:09.680 name is David Natheimer, a psychiatrist and a psycho pharmacologist. 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.120 So I studied effects of drugs on the nervous system 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:17.160 and the psychological consequences of those. David is an internationally 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:20.480 recognized veteran in his field. He spent ten years advising 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.320 the British government on how to create a rational approach 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.200 to drugs and how to minimize their harms, and in 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.600 the UK he's also known for controversy. He was dismissed 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.840 from his position after arguing that alcohol was more harmful 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.480 than a host of other drugs, and to illustrate the 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.680 relative dangers of taking the drug ecstasy, he noted that 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.920 it was no more dangerous than horseback riding. I'd probably 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.440 given more different classes of drugs to human beings and 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:47.720 possibly anyone ever in the history of the world. I mean, 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:52.560 there's almost no class of drugs that I haven't studied 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:56.200 in humans, and humans use a branch of drugs. I 0:07:56.200 --> 0:08:01.160 mean almost no human doesn't take any doctor, tea, coffee, alcohol, tobacco. 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.680 The world's population used and intoxicant or a brain changing 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:11.360 drive for some purpose, generally for benefits. I think, for example, 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:13.560 of the reason you might order a drink on a 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:21.840 first date. Alcohol makes you sociable and makes you convivial 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:25.840 and relaxed in companies enough to take away the natural 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:28.520 social anxiety we all have when we're meeting strangers or 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:34.040 go into parties. Stress is part of human and animal experience. 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:36.719 But then there's a second thing, which is novelty. I mean, 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.080 the human brain is a is a novelty seeking or 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:42.160 you know, humans fascinated by new things, which is why 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.800 we are so successful in the world. Because we've discovered 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:47.600 new things, and we've remembered them, and we've adapted them 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:52.000 and reinforced them. There's something fundamentally appealing and feeling our 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:56.319 consciousness temporarily transformed into something less familiar than our work 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.760 day minds. Alcohol has been used in military purposes people 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:03.959 before they fight, because the alcohol damnfroms down the favorite bonse. 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:06.800 The reason alcohol is a popular has been so popular 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.079 for so many thousands of years is a really good drug. 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.280 It gets in fast and gets in the brain fast. 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:15.960 You know, it's reliable in terms of what you get. 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:23.360 The effect is those related. My very first taste of 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.160 alcohol was probably a sip of a relative's Manhattan cocktail. 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.760 I was maybe eight. It was gross, and I drank 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:36.280 it anyway as a demonstration of my worldliness. Not too 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.240 long afterwards, I would have sipped wine from a heavy 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.959 metal goblet held by a priest at Catholic mass. Communal 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.479 drinking is often a rite of passage socially and sometimes religiously, 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.920 and pretty soon I was a sneaky teenager trying to 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:53.400 weasel my way into the liquor cabinet at my friend 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.320 Katie's dad's house. We poured a little bit from every 0:09:56.320 --> 0:10:00.440 bottle to create a seriously unfortunate slurry that include, among 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:07.240 other things, mid Doory whiskey and Bailey's Irish Cream. So 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.040 how does alcohol actually work? What is it doing to us? 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:15.280 David Nutt explains that it affects several pathways in the brain, 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:20.040 and it mimics a particular neurotransmitter called gabba, and in 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.440 humans and all out of primate wearing fact, pretty much 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:28.200 all vertebrates, gabba calms the brain. Another neurotransmitter called glutamate 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:31.400 has the opposite effect. It revs you up. And both 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.360 substances are always at play in your brain, and it's 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:36.360 almost like your your brain is walking a tight rope. 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:41.360 Too much glutamate and you become hyper excited, and then 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:46.880 you end up getting anxious or having a seizure, and 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:49.840 so gaba protects you against that, but too much gabba 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:51.920 you fall asleep and then you get eaten by a tiger. 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:58.520 So you've got to get the balance right. When people drink, 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.559 it's like they're putting a thumb on the scale, suppressing 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.600 anxiety by blunt chemical force. But of course there are 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.000 diminishing returns. To share a little poem from the writer 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.120 and Total Boss, Dorothy Parker, I like to have a 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.840 martini to at the very most, after three, I'm under 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:21.840 the table. After four, I'm under my host. Alcohol impairs 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:26.640 judgment and cognition, and it can have life destroying chronic consequences, 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:30.480 disease and addiction among them. To quote F. Scott Fitzgerald, 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.199 First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:39.640 Then the drink takes you. Our psycho pharmacologist, David Nutt 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.079 has been in the field of substance abuse for almost 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:44.319 forty years. I'll give you an example. One of the 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:47.439 recent patients of mine and his life was to get 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.560 up in the morning and he'd get a bus up 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.800 the road to the supermarket. He'd buy two liters of 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:58.839 strong cider, which is about two weeks worth of alcohol, 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:01.520 and the just sit there all day and drink that 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.160 and he was destroying himself. And that's really quite common. 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:07.960 People drinking alone and or they're using alcohol then as 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.280 an anesthetic to deaden the pain of their lives rather 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.840 than getting any benefit from it. People suffering from addiction 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.280 using toxic ins because it feels like they have to. 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.280 Some people cite the dangers of booze in an argument 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.199 for abstinence, but David is working on inventing a new drug, 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:31.840 an alternative to alcohol. Alcohol works on multiple neurotransmitter systems. 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.440 It's also a poison. You know. It damages your liver, 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:38.599 in your heart, and your bloveless is accential alcohol is 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:45.320 like playing a piano with boxing glove song. David has 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.280 a lab team working to design a chemical substance that 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:52.040 can imitate the gabba effective alcohol without wreaking as much 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.440 havoc on the rest of the system, like a proper 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:58.280 piodist that plays the song and then goes home. It's 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:01.080 not done yet, but in the meantime he's created and 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:04.480 bottled a prototype that can be concocted from herbs already 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:09.720 on the market as food stuffs. I met him in 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.480 a corner bar in West London to try something. This 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.480 is a botanical spirit that's it's called Centia, and it's 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.200 made of herbs and a combination that will give you 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:24.560 an effect like a low dose of alcohol, like maybe 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:28.680 a glass of wine, without having anything like as much 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:39.240 impact on the rest of your body. Cheers, cheers. The 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:41.559 very first thing you notice about Sentia is the color. 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.440 It's a burgundy that very much appealed to the vestigial 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.320 goth teenager in me. And it's a water based drink, 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.240 but to create some of that like alcohol heat on 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:53.440 the exhale. It has a little bit of pepper in 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.960 it Christmas ee, you know, has that sort of clothy 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.800 aspects to it. And then in a few moments, I 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:04.080 hope you'll feel that is beginning to have the other 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.160 effects of all, not just the mouth effects, but also 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:10.760 the brain effects. I admit that I didn't really feel 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.880 a buzz after drinking Centia. I didn't go in very 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:15.719 hard though, because I was afraid to munk up my 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.760 interview with this very accomplished science guy. David hopes the 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:22.800 one his new compound hits the market, it might shake 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:25.760 up our whole drinking culture, which is a tall order 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:30.440 because that well runs really deep. We just so happened 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:33.120 to have a cultural historian at this little mixer to 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:37.040 tell us all about it. Angela McShane researches the history 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:39.640 of intoxicans and she has some insight on why we 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.280 use them and how they fit into our culture at large. 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.760 She recently curated an exhibit on drinking vessels at the 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:49.640 Victoria and Albert Museum. Fantastic to welcome were the Vienna 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.280 in London. The Vienna, if you haven't had a chance 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:58.440 to visit, feels policial, marble staircases, super high ceilings and 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.400 display cases that are the cleanest glass I have ever seen. 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:04.920 And I know glass is clear, but this was like 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:09.480 clearer than the air around it. It's just it's just 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:14.040 really so clean. Angela's display features rows of drinking vessels 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:18.360 from heavy metal chalices too delicate Venetian glass. The idea 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.280 of the drink display was here was much more about 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:25.800 what are the concepts behind drink? In particular, how did 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.200 it conn sit with the society. Why did people feel 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:31.720 the need to drink? Why did they often feel the 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.880 need to drink too much? For tracks of our history, 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.760 drinking was not an off hour's indulgence. It was a 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.840 pre wreck for civic engagement. One of the things about 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:44.640 the putting this story is the objects together was to 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.400 indicate that drink was at the heart of every part 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.240 of the state. If you're going to demonstrate your loyalty 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.360 to your lord, whether that's an empress or whether that's 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.480 your landlord, the chances are you're going to need to 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.640 have a drink with them to prove that. If you're 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.480 going to go to church, then you're going to drink wine. 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.800 There's also a long history of competitive social drinking, like 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.840 way before a beer pong, people were egging each other 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:13.160 on and ribbing one another and real invested in making 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.160 sure everyone was keeping pace with one another. There's a 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:19.920 phrase called taking somebody down a peg or two. It's 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.640 actually a peg peg tankards. I didn't know the word 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.560 tankred before kicking it with Angela at the museum, So 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.760 if it's a new term to you, imagine like um, 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.680 like a heavy beer mug, but made out of metal 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.800 and with a hinged lid on top. When you open it, 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:38.880 what you can see inside is little pegs light little 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:43.920 pins in the tankard down where the handle is, and 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:48.360 these mark off different measures of drink. And that's because 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:50.960 all of these objects are intended for sharing. And the 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:55.400 idea is that you measure off one peg, two pegs, 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:57.360 and you've agreed with the people that are drinking with 0:16:57.440 --> 0:16:59.880 you how many pegs are going to drink and off. 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.960 Then it can turn into a competition, of course, because 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.639 they will say, let's see you drink three pegs in 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.000 one go. Let's see you drink right, So so then 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:12.399 it becomes a game. And so to take somebody down 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.920 a peg or two is literally to take them down 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:20.600 the pegs in the tankard. This emphasis on drinking together 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:24.480 and ensuring that everyone drinks their share goes back thousands 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:29.400 of years. The phrase in vino veritas is often credited 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:32.639 to Plenty the Elder, a Roman statesman, and it's quoted 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:35.840 by Plato in his text Symposium. You may have heard 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:39.240 it translated to means something like in wine there is truth. 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:42.920 But what it means is when you read it within 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:47.919 the context of his book The Symposium, that because people 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.960 will say things they wouldn't have said if they weren't drunk, 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:56.119 everybody has to be drunk together, and what happens in 0:17:56.160 --> 0:18:01.760 the room stays in the room. Obviously, many people choose 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.240 not to drink for personal reasons, health concerns, or to 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:09.120 abide by the mandates of their faith. Alcohol, for example, 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:15.160 is forbidden in Islam. Okay, So in present day Iran, 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.040 what is the what is the legal position on intoxican 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:24.080 irnly is quite easy. Everything is illegal, even beyond intoxication. 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:28.000 You know, sexual relationship before marriage are illegal. So every 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.520 and everything you can think about that is you know, 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:35.080 you know, even fouly cool it's is illegal. So I'm 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:40.920 Mazzi Mazzi for friends and Enemies. I am an academic 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.720 at the University of Exeter, and I've been working on 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.800 things related to how people intoxicate themselves and why they 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:52.040 do so in in the Midleast in particular. Mazi grew 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.880 up in Iran, then moved to Italy, but has returned 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:58.439 to Iran for research trips. He stresses that the laws 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.320 on the books aren't the laws on the boulevard. Total 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.840 prohibition is not the reality of life in Iran. Life 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:09.560 under the law. It's far more ambiguous and ambivalent. Because 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:14.040 everything is prohibited in a way, everything is also allowed, 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:16.960 So people really kind of do all sorts of stuff 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.520 I mean, I've done things that I wouldn't do it elsewhere. 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:25.440 It's easier to order, you know, a little bag of 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:31.400 math or any other drugs in Tehran than toward the pizza, 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:37.360 and pizza is pretty easy to order. The total ban 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:41.159 on drugs and the serious consequences for getting caught change 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:45.640 the social aspect of consuming drugs. Drinkers, for example, can't 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.720 simply lounge and linger in a bar, and they're more 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:51.600 likely to drink spirits than beer or wine because more 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.439 potent drinks are easier to transport and self for profit. 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:01.560 The first twenty minutes of a drinking session are very 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:06.159 different from whatever else you've seen elsewhere. So there is 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.760 a person who is in charge of pouring whatever alcoholic 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:14.040 drink is available. They call him soggy or you know, 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.159 men or women could be so there is also the 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.879 name for dealer, by the way, and he puts the 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:24.399 drink for everyone, making sure that everyone drinks, and people 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.399 tend to drink in the go, not seeping, you know, 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:34.520 Russian way, But gentlemen, everyone's drunk. Usually, prohibition laws are 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.360 so commonly broken by so many people that it would 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:40.800 be outlandish for authorities to even try to penalize everyone 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:45.639 who did so. The law enforcement do what they do 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:50.440 basically everywhere they can choose when they need to intervene, 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:54.480 but Mazzi says they often do so with an ulterior motive. 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.800 In Iran and around the world, drug violations provide the 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.639 state with a pretel next to intervene in the lives 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.680 of people who have been flagged as risky or problematic 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:09.479 for other reasons. Consider, for example, the seventeenth century Ottoman 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:14.120 crackdown on coffee houses. Coffee was an exotic substance when 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:17.280 it arrived, you know, in the Ottoman Empire. The whole 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:22.199 culture of coffee drinking started around this new substance, you know. 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.800 And because they were also displaces, the coffee houses, where 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.880 people would meet and you know, discuss, there were places 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.520 which were seen as you know, definitely not conventional, but 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:38.520 also potentially dangerous in political terms, according to Mazi and 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.200 many of his colleagues. You know, in academia, you would 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:44.399 struggle to find anyone who supports prohibition because you know, 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:47.960 if you study drugs and addiction, there is no way 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.919 you can say that the current regime of drug prohibition works. 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:56.520 Your voice changes when you talk about prohibition, like you 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.439 just sound hell aboard? Is it just because it's just 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:04.160 an abject failure and there's nothing interesting to say about it. Yeah, 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:08.840 And so it's funny that prohibition has been a total 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:17.120 failure in Iran, you know. Equally as a really little kid, 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:20.719 I remember seeing a public service announcement on TV, a 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:24.760 warning about the grave dangers of marijuana, which was prohibited 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:27.880 then across the US. I ran from the living room 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:31.320 television set to the kitchen and then back again, and 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:34.800 found my fears confirmed. The glass object on the kitchen 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:38.520 shelf was in fact a bomb, which meant that one 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:41.840 or maybe both of my parents was a drug user. 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:45.520 I ended up in tears on my dad's lap. He 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:48.080 admitted the bomb was his and tried to soothe me 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.240 with a hug and some patient words. He asked if 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.359 I thought of him differently, and I told him yes, 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:58.119 according to the after school TV programming, he was a 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.880 moral hazard and a total deviance. But being my dad, 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:04.679 he also made the rules about bedtime and dinner menus, 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:06.520 so I didn't really have a light to stand on. 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:11.680 Prohibition might not be too effective, but it does say 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:15.040 something about the intensity of our motivation to use intoxicans. 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:18.920 People around the world are willing to risk serious consequences 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:21.360 to get drunk or high. Even if how we use 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:23.960 them looks different, it seems like we've got a really 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:28.800 strong universal Why then those drives are varied. When you're 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:31.240 living Iran, a lot of people have the feeling that 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:36.200 they are basically living in isolation from everything for everything 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:39.399 that is happening in the world, and that's interesting, you know, 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:44.000 they feel that they're losing out, and so drugs in 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:47.880 a way project you in a dimension which is still yours, 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:50.840 you know if they don't, and dimension of your everyday life. 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:55.360 But you're connected, like the people are being high in California, 0:23:55.480 --> 0:24:01.560 you're being high in Tehran. It's a mimicking act. We 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:04.639 use drugs to feel connected to each other. From communion 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:08.680 cup to kegstand we all do use drugs. We do 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:14.560 because fundamentally we try to feel better in the world. 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:17.600 Some of them are legal, some of them are illegal, 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:20.920 Some of them are prescribed by you know, our pharmacists, 0:24:21.080 --> 0:24:24.360 and some you know that may be prescribed by our dealers. 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:29.280 We use intoxicans to blunt our anxieties, to demonstrate our allegiances. 0:24:29.720 --> 0:24:31.800 We use them as part of our ceremonies and to 0:24:31.840 --> 0:24:35.240 compete and connect with one another. And of course, the 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:38.920 particular in toxicans we choose can also send messages about 0:24:38.920 --> 0:24:42.040 how we'd like to be perceived. Like if a woman 0:24:42.080 --> 0:24:44.600 walks into a bar and shoots a double shot of tequila, 0:24:45.040 --> 0:24:47.879 that just reads differently than if she asks for a 0:24:47.880 --> 0:24:52.440 glass of rose or a corps like tall Boy champagne 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:56.080 is for celebrating Long Island ice teas, or for utility. 0:24:56.440 --> 0:24:59.679 Some Irish whiskeys are shunned by Catholics and some shunned 0:24:59.720 --> 0:25:04.880 by contestants. Smoking a Virginia slim isn't the same thing 0:25:05.119 --> 0:25:09.960 as smoking a Marlborough red or a Cuban cigar, And 0:25:10.040 --> 0:25:15.720