The thing about drugs needs to be really expanded on other similar things - tobacco, alcohol, gambling etc. Sure all those are as old as humanity in this or that form, but you can notice in history, wherever those become a systemic problem, there's always a ruling class organising, promoting and profiting from those.
As a Pole, great example of this is alcohol. Up till maybe XVII-XVIII century it wasn't even a problem for most society, because only richer people were able to afford strong alcohol like wine*, peasants and burghers drank beer that had more common with the ancient beer than modern one - that it was very weak but also dense and caloric. Then, during the XVII-XVIII centuries, in the age where nobility was experimenting with myriad ways of exploiting peasants, propination privilege was born. Nobles were forcing peasants to trade only with them, and that include beer, so of course peasants get forbidden for making their own beer, but had to buy from the noble, so quality dropped like stone (there are sources saying it was so disgusting people were afraid to drink it) and price increased, also it was sold obligatory, every peasant had to buy. Then the vodka made from grains appeared and it allowed for even more profits, also nobles started to pay peasants** in vodka. This of course caused immediate epidemic of alcoholism that got way worse when cities get under similar boot, and it was so bad in XIX century that it got enshrined in culture. (all this was very similar in Russia)
This is very important point, because it explains how hard is to get rid of it. Every Polish state, from II RP, through PRL to current Poland tries to do something with it, and, as many opinions here would tell, failed, but it's only when having binary look at this. You can't just eradicate plague so entrenched, but even the mere act of state stopping promoting alcohol did a lot to contain the issue. Though you can argue, and you would be right, that all three of those states did promote alcohol by owning or allowing for selling, advertising etc. But then you could notice that after 100 years the issue is much less severe than it was in 1918. There was also some half measures, both in form of antialcohol educational and administrative campaigns in PRL, which did had their effects or even partial prohibition efforts. Last one is pretty interesting, it was prohibition fo selling alcohol before 1PM, which seems superficial but it greatly reduced the most dangerous (and common then) aspect of alcoholism, people getting drunk in work. And this also after a time got into culture and regulations so now drinking in work is very rare (even though the partial prohibition was abolished long ago, arguing that it fulfilled its role).
The similar is with drugs and gambling, there was not much problem with those in socialism, even though PRL did the usual forms of state gambling like lotteries, because there was not much supply, not much promotion and not even much demand. All three increased with liberalisation and increased cultural penetration from the west, to explode when the socialism was destroyed. You probably did saw the horror reports from Russian transformation, Polish was not as horrible but still bad, and it was absolutely clear that all those drugs that suddenly flooded our streets weren't just conjured from thin air. No, all of this is part of the class war.
*Yes it might sound weird right now, but wine was considered strong alcohol for most of history (and it was usually even weaker than most modern wines) - for example ancient Greeks watered it down so much that getting drunk took them hours of pretty fast drinking, and Gauls shocked entire Mediterranean world by drinking unwatered wine (and they soon learned to water it down so medieval and later French were also often watering it heavily). Of course stronger alcohols like brandy was known, but it was expensive and rare. Vodka appeared on a noticeable scale around XVII century (and it was expensive and real shit, it was falsified with everything from pepper through gunpowder to sulphuric acid). Only mass and incredibly cheap destilation methods invented during the industrial revolution cause strong alcohols to spread like crazy.
**For their grain usually, not for labour, at this point serfdom was so far going that a peasant family was obligated to unpaid work even 32 workdays per week. Even totally landless and destitute peasants were obligated to work 4-5 days per week.
Finally, i'm currently reading excellent book about serfdom and generally condition of peasants in Poland, i might write a short review after i finish.
Thanks for the detailed comment, and I'd love to read your little review on the book when you're done.
Thinking about it, you make a very compelling point. How do we pretend to try and fight gambling, while allowing literal private companies to profit from it. I didn't think about the complexity and price of alcohol distillation up until the industrial revolution, and it's interesting to know that for most of history, distilled drinks weren't a thing for the vast majority of the population. Honestly, good for them. Low alcohol content beers are much much harder to get alcoholic on, than hard liquor. I lived in Germany for a while, and I was horrified at a common practice in supermarkets: next to every cashier, they have a little shelf full of little booze bottles and cigarette packs. How is that fucking legal, it's extremely obviously targeted to addicts, and it's honestly shameful that people in Germany don't fight to forbid that.
About wine being considered high alcohol content, I did know that too, reading some historic novels about the second punic war (the trilogy of Scipio, by a Spanish writer called Santiago Posteguillo) and about Julia Domna (also by Posteguillo), it was clear thay Romans considered drinking wine without watering down to be a thing for barbarians. Funnily enough, in contemporary Spain, a very popular summer drink is "tinto de verano", which is a mixture of wine with a slightly sweet soda water called "gaseosa", so I guess we still run with it at least partially (many people do drink wine with meals).
All in all, yeah, I'll definitely dedicate some time and possibly research to looking into prohibition of certain addictions such as some drugs or gambling in socialist countries... Interesting shit. Thanks again mate, always a pleasure to see you around
I lived in Germany for a while, and I was horrified at a common practice in supermarkets: next to every cashier, they have a little shelf full of little booze bottles and cigarette packs.
Same in Poland, and all the cheap fruit wines, commonly called "brainscrambler" or "brainfucker" - on a sidenote, Janusz Palikot, one of most notable Polish liberal succdem politicians (though now he's sidelined) made a fortune producing and selling them.
Thank you.
The thing about drugs needs to be really expanded on other similar things - tobacco, alcohol, gambling etc. Sure all those are as old as humanity in this or that form, but you can notice in history, wherever those become a systemic problem, there's always a ruling class organising, promoting and profiting from those.
As a Pole, great example of this is alcohol. Up till maybe XVII-XVIII century it wasn't even a problem for most society, because only richer people were able to afford strong alcohol like wine*, peasants and burghers drank beer that had more common with the ancient beer than modern one - that it was very weak but also dense and caloric. Then, during the XVII-XVIII centuries, in the age where nobility was experimenting with myriad ways of exploiting peasants, propination privilege was born. Nobles were forcing peasants to trade only with them, and that include beer, so of course peasants get forbidden for making their own beer, but had to buy from the noble, so quality dropped like stone (there are sources saying it was so disgusting people were afraid to drink it) and price increased, also it was sold obligatory, every peasant had to buy. Then the vodka made from grains appeared and it allowed for even more profits, also nobles started to pay peasants** in vodka. This of course caused immediate epidemic of alcoholism that got way worse when cities get under similar boot, and it was so bad in XIX century that it got enshrined in culture. (all this was very similar in Russia)
This is very important point, because it explains how hard is to get rid of it. Every Polish state, from II RP, through PRL to current Poland tries to do something with it, and, as many opinions here would tell, failed, but it's only when having binary look at this. You can't just eradicate plague so entrenched, but even the mere act of state stopping promoting alcohol did a lot to contain the issue. Though you can argue, and you would be right, that all three of those states did promote alcohol by owning or allowing for selling, advertising etc. But then you could notice that after 100 years the issue is much less severe than it was in 1918. There was also some half measures, both in form of antialcohol educational and administrative campaigns in PRL, which did had their effects or even partial prohibition efforts. Last one is pretty interesting, it was prohibition fo selling alcohol before 1PM, which seems superficial but it greatly reduced the most dangerous (and common then) aspect of alcoholism, people getting drunk in work. And this also after a time got into culture and regulations so now drinking in work is very rare (even though the partial prohibition was abolished long ago, arguing that it fulfilled its role).
The similar is with drugs and gambling, there was not much problem with those in socialism, even though PRL did the usual forms of state gambling like lotteries, because there was not much supply, not much promotion and not even much demand. All three increased with liberalisation and increased cultural penetration from the west, to explode when the socialism was destroyed. You probably did saw the horror reports from Russian transformation, Polish was not as horrible but still bad, and it was absolutely clear that all those drugs that suddenly flooded our streets weren't just conjured from thin air. No, all of this is part of the class war.
*Yes it might sound weird right now, but wine was considered strong alcohol for most of history (and it was usually even weaker than most modern wines) - for example ancient Greeks watered it down so much that getting drunk took them hours of pretty fast drinking, and Gauls shocked entire Mediterranean world by drinking unwatered wine (and they soon learned to water it down so medieval and later French were also often watering it heavily). Of course stronger alcohols like brandy was known, but it was expensive and rare. Vodka appeared on a noticeable scale around XVII century (and it was expensive and real shit, it was falsified with everything from pepper through gunpowder to sulphuric acid). Only mass and incredibly cheap destilation methods invented during the industrial revolution cause strong alcohols to spread like crazy.
**For their grain usually, not for labour, at this point serfdom was so far going that a peasant family was obligated to unpaid work even 32 workdays per week. Even totally landless and destitute peasants were obligated to work 4-5 days per week.
Finally, i'm currently reading excellent book about serfdom and generally condition of peasants in Poland, i might write a short review after i finish.
Thanks for the detailed comment, and I'd love to read your little review on the book when you're done.
Thinking about it, you make a very compelling point. How do we pretend to try and fight gambling, while allowing literal private companies to profit from it. I didn't think about the complexity and price of alcohol distillation up until the industrial revolution, and it's interesting to know that for most of history, distilled drinks weren't a thing for the vast majority of the population. Honestly, good for them. Low alcohol content beers are much much harder to get alcoholic on, than hard liquor. I lived in Germany for a while, and I was horrified at a common practice in supermarkets: next to every cashier, they have a little shelf full of little booze bottles and cigarette packs. How is that fucking legal, it's extremely obviously targeted to addicts, and it's honestly shameful that people in Germany don't fight to forbid that.
About wine being considered high alcohol content, I did know that too, reading some historic novels about the second punic war (the trilogy of Scipio, by a Spanish writer called Santiago Posteguillo) and about Julia Domna (also by Posteguillo), it was clear thay Romans considered drinking wine without watering down to be a thing for barbarians. Funnily enough, in contemporary Spain, a very popular summer drink is "tinto de verano", which is a mixture of wine with a slightly sweet soda water called "gaseosa", so I guess we still run with it at least partially (many people do drink wine with meals).
All in all, yeah, I'll definitely dedicate some time and possibly research to looking into prohibition of certain addictions such as some drugs or gambling in socialist countries... Interesting shit. Thanks again mate, always a pleasure to see you around
Same in Poland, and all the cheap fruit wines, commonly called "brainscrambler" or "brainfucker" - on a sidenote, Janusz Palikot, one of most notable Polish liberal succdem politicians (though now he's sidelined) made a fortune producing and selling them.