Benjamin Robert Siegel, "Markets of Pain: Opium, Capitalism, and the Global History of Painkillers" (Oxford UP, 2026)Benjamin Robert Siegel, "Markets of Pain: Opium, Capitalism, and the Global History of Painkillers" (Oxford UP, 2026)
New Books in Drugs, Addiction and Recovery
Historian Benjamin Siegel discusses the global history of licit opium and its role in shaping modern painkillers, capitalism and the contemporary opioid crisis. The conversation follows farmers, officials and pharmaceutical actors across India, Turkey and beyond, highlighting how long-standing systems of production still influence today’s debates on addiction and recovery.
37:23•12 May 2026
Markets of Pain: Opium, Capitalism and the Story Behind Modern Painkillers
Episode Overview
- Licit opium production has played a central role in building modern medicine, global trade and state power, yet is often overshadowed by illicit markets.
- Benjamin Siegel focuses on producers’ fields in places like India and Turkey to explain how historical opium infrastructures still shape today’s opioid crisis.
- India and Turkey followed different paths in the 20th century, with India maintaining a stronger position in licit opium markets and Turkey’s industry becoming largely vestigial.
- Intoxicating substances, from coffee to opioids, reveal how each era draws lines between vice, medicine and commerce, making them powerful tools for teaching and understanding history.
- Synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have altered the landscape of addiction and treatment, yet poppy-based painkillers remain significant and the future of supply is politically and medically complex.
““Opium is just irresistible as a historian. It’s a substance that can cure, that can kill.””
Understand the complexities of addiction with insights from historian Benjamin Siegel, as he joins host Tom Zojka to chat about his book *Markets of Pain: Opium, Capitalism, and the Global History of Painkillers*. Aimed at anyone curious about how today’s opioid crisis fits into a much longer story, this conversation blends global history with very human stories. Instead of starting with prescription pads or famous pharmaceutical families, Siegel traces things back to the fields where opium poppies are grown.
He explains how licit opium – the legally produced stuff – shaped modern medicine, global trade and state power, yet has often sat in the shadow of the black market.
As he puts it, “Opium is just irresistible as a historian… It’s a substance that can cure, that can kill.” You’ll hear about India’s long-standing role as a major opium producer, Turkey’s more troubled relationship with American buyers, and how both countries ended up with “vestigial” industries kept alive as much by politics as by economics.
Siegel walks through how opium links peasants scoring poppy pods in the 19th century to boardrooms, diplomats and pharmaceutical labs in the 20th and 21st. Tom and Ben also talk about why intoxicating substances make such useful teaching tools: from coffee fuelling Enlightenment coffeehouses to modern debates about fentanyl and synthetic opioids. They touch on how much work has focused on illicit markets and consumption, while this book shifts the spotlight onto licit supply chains and the infrastructures behind them.
For anyone in recovery, supporting someone who is, or working in treatment, this episode offers historical context that can make today’s policy debates and overdose statistics feel less random and more rooted in long-standing systems. It asks a quiet but important question: if the crisis has such deep roots, what kind of change do we really need?
If you’ve ever wondered how a single crop could bind together bodies, borders and big business, this conversation might give you a new lens on pain, profit and policy.
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