{"id":2299,"date":"2016-03-14T07:45:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T14:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/?p=2299"},"modified":"2016-03-15T12:07:28","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T19:07:28","slug":"the-war-on-drugs-1511","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/2016\/03\/14\/the-war-on-drugs-1511\/","title":{"rendered":"The War on Drugs…in 1511"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abyssinian goat herders may have been the first people to use the coffee bean for it’s psychoactive properties. The goat herders were likely to have observed their goats eating\u00a0 red berries off one particular tree, Cofea<\/em>. After trying the berries themselves the goat herders experienced the psychoactive properties of the berries, and somewhere along the line they learned to roast the beans to make coffee.<\/p>\n

Now, caffeine<\/b> is the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive substance. And though it has become the world’s leading choice of stimulant, what happened before it achieved it’s popular\u00a0status? Why was coffee banned with such force? and most importantly, who benefited the most from banning coffee?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Well coffee was actually heavily banned for a very long time<\/a>, beginning over half a millenium\u00a0ago in 1511. There were huge religious implications<\/a> to this, and there aren’t any coffee haters from one particular religion, many faiths have had their fair share of coffee banning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If I were to openly drink coffee during the ban<\/strong>: Mecca 1511 I would have been subject to severe social stigma. In Italy during the 16th century the pope would have called\u00a0me\u00a0Satanic. And (my favorite) Constantinople in 1623 Sultan Murad IV would have personally beheaded me (or tossed me in a river).<\/p>\n

\"sultan_wide-fd97bd0507fe2145f770920e9622fb3c90b76bc1-s800-c85\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sultan Murad IV was born in July 27, 1612. He was able to end lawlessness in his land as well as successfully\u00a0conquer of Bagdad, two wonderful feats. But he also would disguise himself and roam the streets looking for a criminal coffee-drinkers to chop down with his hundred pound broadsword. When he realized that method wan’t sustainable he resorted to sewing the perpetrator in a leather bag then\u00a0tossing the bag\u00a0into a river.<\/p>\n

(The Sultan also had a horrible drug\u00a0habit that involved copious amounts of alcohol. His addiction to alcohol was the cause of his death, ironic considering his\u00a0tyrannical\u00a0ban on coffee).<\/em><\/p>\n

The ban on coffee was almost\u00a0300 years long and expanded to the Arabic Penninsula, Africa, Italy, and the Americas. But why was this historical War on Beans such a long battle?<\/p>\n

The first theory that answers why it was so hard to legalize coffee can be found in the SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol: Social, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0that the war on coffee makes a lot of profit for big corporations.<\/p>\n

The truth is, privatizing and legalizing\u00a0other drugs (such as alcohol)\u00a0made large organizations a lot of money. By creating a monopoly power on psychoactive substances weal\u00a0were able to maintain their power and privilege. “[wealthy] elites dependent on alcohol production and trade to retain power and privilege, developed independently of many ancient cultures; they often used their wealth and influence to promote state policies favorable to their\u00a0economic interests<\/strong> in trading commoditized alcohol”. (SAGE encyclopedia linked above, 147).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The second\u00a0theory comes from Micheal Pollan<\/a> supports the encyclopedia’s claim. Although Pollan’s study is about botany and human relationships with plants, he also acknowledges that throughout the historical use of plant-based-drugs<\/a> humans have always fell into the pattern\u00a0of favoring one drug and, for no natural reason<\/a>, prohibiting the use of another.<\/p>\n

In recent years\u00a0we may have fallen prey to the same drug-of-choice attitude<\/a>. 2014 marked a time when alcohol manufacturers, beer breweries, and tobacco industries fought against marijuana legalization. However, in 2016 we can see changes in the industry, particularly within\u00a0BIg Tobacco<\/a>; it’s\u00a0cited as having been interested in marijuana as both a complementary and rival product since 1970 and is just beginning to act on its interests.<\/p>\n

With deep pockets\u00a0suddenly becoming interested in the marijuana\u00a0industry, we can expect huge transformations not only in the industry itself but within\u00a0the cultural perception of marijuana as well. After all, the War on Weed has only been waged\u00a0for 100 years, compared to the historical 400 year religious\/political war on coffee.<\/p>\n

And in other news<\/strong>, finally, someone banned these damn un-recyclable K-cups.\u00a0<\/a>and an expert tells us a but about\u00a0why we should pay attention to North Korea<\/a>..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abyssinian goat herders may have been the first people to use the coffee bean for it’s psychoactive properties. The goat herders were likely to have observed their goats eating\u00a0 red berries off one particular tree, Cofea. After trying the berries themselves the goat herders experienced the psychoactive properties of the berries, and somewhere along the line they learned to roast the beans to make coffee. Now, caffeine is the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive substance. And though it has become the world’s leading choice of stimulant, what happened before it achieved it’s popular\u00a0status? Why was coffee banned with such force? Continue reading The War on Drugs…in 1511<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":503,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[169,185,122,394,189],"class_list":["post-2299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-coffee","tag-drugs","tag-government","tag-history","tag-performance-enhancing-drugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/503"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2299"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2313,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2299\/revisions\/2313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}