Episode 08: Alexandra Chasin, author of a biography of America's first drug czar Harry J. Anslinger who coined the term 'marijuana'

Alexandra Chasin is an associate professor at The New School. Her new book Assassin of Youth: A Kaleidoscopic History of Harry J. Anslinger's War on Drugs is a biography of America's first drug czar who popularized the term 'marijuana' and ushered in the Reefer Madness period of drug prohibition. A master propagandist prone to demonizing ethnic and immigrant groups, Anslinger's ideas laid the foundation for the modern drug war and brought awareness of cannabis to the American masses.

Alexandra and I talked about the Harrison Act, how America was scandalized by wild 'marijuana parties,' and the analogues between coming out as queer and coming out as a stoner.