In the Vox podcast In a Nutshell, hosts Jara Majerus and Antonia Leise take a deep dive into the university's most interesting, strange, and exciting research. Every two weeks, they invite Radboud researchers to talk about their favourite topics – explained in bite-sized episodes. In today's episode, Antonia learns about the modern history of drugs and the empires they built.

Poison, medicine or magic potion? Drugs can probably be all of that. But what makes a drug legal or illegal? Or rather: who decides on that?

“Who will ever relate the whole history of narcotics? It is almost the history of ‘culture’,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche more than a hundred years ago – and he might be onto something. In today’s episode, Antonia and this week’s guest, Brigitte Adriaensen, talk about how drugs have been perceived throughout time and why colonialism wasn’t only built on the drug trade but continues to influence how we view substances like cocaine.

Brigitte Adriaensen is a professor of Hispanic Literature and Culture. For her VICI project ‘Poison, Medicine or Magic Potion’, she and her team research the perception of peyote, ayahuasca and coca across time.

Would you like to learn more about the history of drugs? Then follow Brigitte’s recommendations and watch the movie Embrace of the Serpent (2015), visit the website Microcosms: A Homage to Sacred Plants of the Americas or read the book One River by Canadian anthropologist Wade Davis.