This episode of The Dig is brought to you by our listeners who support us at patreon.com

and by Verso Books, which has loads of great left-wing titles, perfect for dig listeners like you.

One that you might like is Quick Fixes, Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st century binge

by Benjamin Y. Fong. Americans are in the midst of a world-historic drug binge,

opiates, amphetamines, benzodiazepines, marijuana, antidepressants, antipsychotics.

Across the board, consumption has shot up in the 21st century. At the same time,

the United States is home to the largest prison system in the world, in part justified by

a now zombified war on drugs. How did we get here? Quick Fixes as a look at American society

through the lens of its pharmacological crutches. Each chapter is devoted to the modern

history of a drug or class of drugs as Fong examines Americans' fraught relationship with psychoactive

substances. Quick Fixes, Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st century binge

by Benjamin Y. Fong, out now from Verso Books.

Welcome to the Dig, a podcast from Jacobin Magazine. My name is Daniel Denver,

and I'm broadcasting from Providence, Rhode Island. Latin America has inspired the US left

all the way back to the Cuban revolution, and even before all the way back to the Mexican

revolution. So many left wing movements and governments across the region have been

attacked by right wing forces, backed by our very own US government. As a result,

the US left has frequently prioritized a politics of solidarity, opposing US intervention,

and supporting Latin America's peoples movements, and socialist governments.

Today, my guest is representative Alexandria Acasio Cortez, who recently joined fellow progressive

members of Congress on a delegation to meet with left officials and movement leaders in Brazil,

Colombia, and Chile. The Center for Economic and Policy Research, or CEPAR, helped organize the

...