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/359/ Apollo Gets High ft. Benjamin Fong (Patreon)

Published:
2023-08-22 13:00:54
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

On the American drug binge.

Forget all the stereotypes – drug use is no longer confined to particular subcultures. US Americans are taking world-historic levels of drugs. Benjamin Fong tells us about his new book, Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge, which covers everything from morphine to mushrooms, SSRIs to speed, caffeine to cocaine.

Ultimately, is all this drug-taking about reckless abandon, or about control?

For more, go to patreon.com/bungacast

Subscribe to Damage Magazine

Links:

Building Big Things, Damage Magazine, Issue 1

Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge, Benjamin Y. Fong, Verso

Who Deserves Amphetamines, Benjamin Fong, The Point

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Comments

Kenneth Smith

One of the more interesting eps in awhile thanks boys

Richard R

Excuse the length of the comment, I am literally a drug and alcohol counselor who lives in a state that decriminalized all drugs very recently, so I have some thoughts. I think Phil is right about marijuana. Though, notably, the market has split almost completely since legalization on the West Coast, between the medicinal market (CBD) on one hand and the recreational market (THC) on the other hand. Not sure if Fong covers this, but it's a considerable problem, and one that few people seem to be talking about unless they are medical marijuana users. I have epilepsy, and for a while there, the drugs I bought from the street (read: suburban parking lots) could both treat my epilepsy and get me high. Now these have taken on completely different roles. Because CBD and THC act on the same receptors, they're thought of as competitors in the sense that there's no reason to do both. In fact, the ever more refined and pure THC (wax, "glass", "shatter") are leading to psychotic breaks as people consume quantities of THC even Bob Marley couldn't have imagined. Yes, these weed overdoses are real. Thus, the removal of CBD from the recreational market has meant the removal of a modulating dimension of marijuana as it was consumed for thousands of years previously. I think this reflects an acceleration in American culture and political economy started by the neoliberal turn, but definitely NOT modulated by TEOTEOH, which is simply pure dissociation into individual fantasy. Meth and fentanyl are cheap, but weed has an item for every price point. If you ask marijuana sellers, they'll tell you there's a cannabinoid item for every possible mood. And while meth can cut either way between atomization or sociality, and fentanyl is almost purely antisocial and can lead to a night of sitting there, blissing out about nothing, you can smoke weed completely on your own and still be just barely associated with reality enough to watch movies, play videogames, and order grubhub. Tweakers and junkies are unpredictable consumers. Stoners are increasingly hitting literally insane levels of weed consumption, but until they get there, they will predictably consume snacks and media all day.

Stone

Richard, do you see people utilize all drugs as a kind of cope/ a means to make themselves more efficient? Since people work all the time and it haunts them. This might be class related. I know people who microdose on shrooms. Use THC to be better at their job, as counterintuitive as that is. Basically taking the fun and ritual out of drugs and making it a means to and end.

Charles

“Amphetamine fuelled acceleration” - you guys teasing an episode on Land? In all seriousness I loved this episode, and was reminded by one of the California episodes from way back, alongside something one of your guests said in the 100th anniversary episode. That juxtaposition between the euphoric end of history drug use of California (and maybe wider America) and the more ‘sense-of-dread’ era of the British 90s drug use (adjacent to the run-down Warehouse rave atmosphere - if I remember one of your guests from the California series remarked how in America people smoked to relax, but was initially shocked to see partygoers smoke to keep up and keep dancing - which would become sanitised towards the end of that decade) is very striking, and I think Fong’s work sounds like it gives great insight for that former period and updates it for todays context!

DTC

I have been working in the nightlife entertainment industry for over a decade and the fall of cocaine has been extremely palpable. I’m really surprised that ketamine wasn’t mentioned. It is, by far, the most popular drug these days in the club scene, at least in New York/Berlin/LA. Moreover, it’s the perfect drug for the moment: a legal dissociative. Great episode though. And the microdose crypto bro really is a thing these days.