EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,023 words- 0:00 – 1:28
Bartow Elmore’s origin story: tracing Coca-Cola’s environmental footprint
- NANarrator
(drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) Seed money. Tell me, tell me about all this dirtiness.
- BEBartow Elmore
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Tell me about these, these monsters-
- BEBartow Elmore
(inhales deeply)
- JRJoe Rogan
... and the money that they make.
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah. Uh...
- JRJoe Rogan
How'd you get involved in this, first of all?
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah, sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
How'd ... Why, why'd this become, uh, your field of study?
- BEBartow Elmore
(smacks lips) Well, thanks, Joe, for having me on. This is, this is awesome.
- JRJoe Rogan
My pleasure. Thanks for being here.
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm excited to talk to you about this.
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Very important subject, right?
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah. For me it was. I... You know, I... It really started with the first project I worked on, the first book I wrote, which was the history of Coca-Cola and its environmental impact around the world.
- JRJoe Rogan
You were just telling us that Pepsi is actually older than Coke, which is surprising.
- BEBartow Elmore
Dr Pepper. Yeah, Dr Pepper.
- JRJoe Rogan
Dr Pepper's older?
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah. Yeah, Dr Pepper's older, weirdly. And it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
(coughs)
- BEBartow Elmore
You think of it as like the, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I thought it was like the new kid on the block.
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah, exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the oldest?
- BEBartow Elmore
1885. Not the oldest, but it's older than Coke.
- JRJoe Rogan
What's the oldest?
- BEBartow Elmore
Coke was 1886. I don't really even know what the oldest one would be.
- JRJoe Rogan
So Dr Pepper came along first, then Coca-Cola, and then Pepsi?
- 1:28 – 5:22
Cocaine, coca leaves, and the hidden “Merchandise No. 5” ingredient
- JRJoe Rogan
But the thing about Pepsi is like it never had cocaine in it, did it?
- BEBartow Elmore
No. Actually, this is, this is relevant. I mean, so this, this was the beginning of this book, because I was doing that. I was looking at all the ingredients that go into Coca-Cola and saying, "Okay, where ... What's in the drink, first of all?" 'Cause it's from my hometown, it's where it started. I said, "Okay, I want to find out all these natural resources in the product." And, you know, "Is coca in the drink?" And also caffeine, we'll get to that, that's how it connects-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
... to Monsanto. But, um, coca was the most interesting actually, 'cause I thought, you know, "It's called Coca-Cola, so does it have cocaine in it?" Um, and so I went back to look at that, and turns out, yeah, you know, trace amounts back-
- JRJoe Rogan
Still?
- BEBartow Elmore
In the beginning. No, no, no.
- JRJoe Rogan
In the beginning?
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah. But this is what's interesting about the history of, of the drink.
- NANarrator
(coughs)
- BEBartow Elmore
So this is 1886. Back then, the coca leaf was actually seen as something that was-
- JRJoe Rogan
Medicinal, right?
- BEBartow Elmore
... medicinal, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Innocuous.
- BEBartow Elmore
Absolutely. And everyone was using the coca leaf. I mean, there was a drink called Vin Mariani. It was actually a wine, a, a, a red wine that was mixed with coca leaves.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- BEBartow Elmore
So it kind of had a little kick to it. And like Queen Victoria of England drank this stuff. Ulysses S. Grant, our president, was like, "Whoo!" You know, "Coca wine, this is awesome." (laughs) And, uh, e- even the Pope actually. And I, I, I wonder if communion would have had, you know, Vin Mariani, we would all be Catholic-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- BEBartow Elmore
... or something. But, um, but so it was really popular. And this guy, this guy who was down on his luck, John Pemberton, who started Coca-Cola in Atlanta, he wanted to make a coca drink himself. And so he made this ... Originally, Coke was actually a wine, it was like a wine of coca. It was a red wine mixed with coca leaves, exact knockoff of that drink that was really popular. And, um, and then prohibition hits Atlanta, because we're in the Protestant South in the 1880s, and so he has to take out the alcohol. And so he creates this non-alcoholic drink, Coca-Cola, that has the coca leaf in it. They weren't concerned (laughs) about the coca, they were concerned about alcohol. Uh, and it, it remained in the drink, uh, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century.
- JRJoe Rogan
What kind of dose would it, would it have in it?
- BEBartow Elmore
Very small. You know, th- and this I think is important. You know, people equate the coca leaf with, you know, cocaine, because yes, you can make cocaine, like street cocaine from, you know, processing all these coca leaves. But if you go to Peru today or you go to certain parts of South America, people chew coca leaves. It's, it's a normal practice. It's been going back thousands of years, to the Inca even. Um, and so it's, it's very small amounts. We're not talking about like ... In fact, you'd probably get a bigger hit from like, uh, you know, experience from a cup of espresso from Starbucks.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BEBartow Elmore
Um, but interestingly, the reason that cocaine became taboo and why it got pulled from the drink had nothing to do with national laws in the country, which was so interesting when I was studying it. It had everything to do with racism actually in the South. Because there was a concern that cocaine was contributing to Black crime in Atlanta, which was being, of course, blown up by segregationists and white supremacists. And Asa Candler, who was a white guy in Atlanta, didn't want to have anything to do with that. So he decides, kind of quietly, to take out the cocaine. But here's the interes- interesting thing, Joe. They kept the coca leaf as one of their secret ingredients.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
It, it's ... So secret ingredient number five. By the way, Coke doesn't like talking about this. This is not part of their history that they like discussing. Um, but it's clear as day in the archives. You can see it. So it's called merchandise number five, the fifth secret ingredient in Coca-Cola. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
I like the name. (laughs)
- BEBartow Elmore
Isn't it? Merchandise number five.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BEBartow Elmore
Well, the whole idea is that you name things-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BEBartow Elmore
... so that no one asks questions.
- 5:22 – 7:11
The New Jersey loophole: legal coca imports and medical-grade cocaine production
- BEBartow Elmore
Which is from, uh, West Africa actually. And it was originally in there 'cause it has caffeine, another kind of caffeine kick. Um, that's where Coca-Cola comes from. But kola, by the way, is with a K, the actual kola nut. Anyway, that's merchandise number five, and it's basically the flavor of the coca leaf, um, the essence of the coca leaf. And the way it works is these leaves are brought in from Peru is actually where Coca-Cola sourced it. That was crazy. I had to track down, "Okay, where are they getting their coca leaves from?" And there's this company called Maywood Chemical Company. Today the company's called Stepan Chemical Company.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that in New Jersey?
- BEBartow Elmore
It is in New Jersey. Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
And-
- BEBartow Elmore
Maywood, New Jersey.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. They're ... No, they're the ones who process it, and they make medical grade cocaine out of it, and then use the flavor aspect of it for Coca-Cola.
- BEBartow Elmore
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
And, you know, technically, at first, uh-... as you s- as you put it, most of the cocaine was going for pharmaceutical uses and for, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Lidocaine.
- BEBartow Elmore
... all sorts of things like that-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
... they use for legitimate purposes. But Coke needed actually so much flavoring. Think about their brand.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. (laughs)
- BEBartow Elmore
It's so big.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like wheatgrass juice-
- BEBartow Elmore
That, yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... you gotta squeeze a lot to get-
- BEBartow Elmore
(laughs) Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to get a cup.
- BEBartow Elmore
So they had to, like, come up with this special... I love it. You can't make this stuff up. This is why history is fun. There's a special exemption in our laws for what are called special leaves from Peru. And if anybody looking at it saying, "Well, what the hell are these special leaves?" You know? And they're special because they're allowed to come into the United States exclusively, basically, to create the flavoring extract for Coca-Cola. And a lot of people call it the Coca-Cola Joker.
- JRJoe Rogan
How closely do you think they monitor that supply?
- BEBartow Elmore
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, I mean-
- BEBartow Elmore
Very closely.
- JRJoe Rogan
... uh, they would have to.
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause like if a bundle or two fell off a truck here or there-
- BEBartow Elmore
(laughs) Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that could be extremely profitable.
- 7:11 – 9:45
Coke’s secret Hawaii coca farm experiment—and nature ‘biting back’
- BEBartow Elmore
Right. I talked to somebody once. They said, "So is there, like, a pile of cocaine somewhere up in New Jersey, you know, where this is happening?" And, uh, you know, "I don't think that's the case." But here's the, here's the crazy part too. This is what's fun about tracing these stories of ingredients, because they lead you to places you never thought you'd go, like this book, which we'll talk about. But, um, it got weird. If that's not weird, it got weirder in the '60s, um, because Coca-Cola wanted to figure out a way to make coca leaves in the United States, to grow their own coca leaves. They weren't satisfied with this trade with Peru. And these are declassified DEA documents at the National Archives. This is not like, you know, a-
- JRJoe Rogan
Tinfoil hat.
- BEBartow Elmore
... yeah, uh, something crazy. You can see it, and actually it's in the book. But basically, they petition the federal government to start growing it. At first, they're thinking like the Virgin Islands, but then they're like, "Ah, I don't know. There's, like, all these tourists. It's gonna be crazy." But they have to find a climate and a location geography where they can do this. And they ultimately go, "Okay, what about Hawaii?" And they do, Joe. They grew coca leaves secretly, a totally secret operation called the Aliquía Project, also called Aliquía. What does that mean? Exactly. Nobody's gonna ask questions, you know, obfuscate the, the story. In Kauai.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow.
- BEBartow Elmore
And it was done through the University of Hawaii. S- uh, they had to sign all these non-disclosure agreements, and they wouldn't publish their papers, uh, you know, that on the study of all this. The reason the government agreed to it is that Coke said, "We're gonna create a cocaine-less coca shrub," like basically breed a plant that doesn't have cocaine in it. And of course, that never really (laughs) transpires, but they do end up growing secretly behind barbed wire fences, coca leaves for Coca-Cola, uh, in the '60s. But I'm an environmental historian, so I study the, the relationship between, like, businesses and the environment. And in this case, the environment matters 'cause nature bit back. So in the '60s, this fungus that's native to Hawaii was like, "Whoa, this plant, uh, that's not native and attacks it," and it wipes out the entire, uh, coca crop of Coca-Cola so that the supply they had for a very brief time in the '60s is wiped out. They go back to sourcing it from, uh, Peru. Um, but, so I was looking at all those ingredients, and it was when I was looking at caffeine that I ended up talking about Monsanto.
- 9:45 – 18:10
Peru, monopsony power, and the politics of banning coca products
- JRJoe Rogan
So does Coca-Cola have a legitimate relationship with coca leaf growers in Peru right now?
- BEBartow Elmore
Right. Uh, legitimate, I think, is the, the right kind of question to ask.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
I mean, I went down to Peru because I think it's important-
- JRJoe Rogan
(coughs)
- BEBartow Elmore
... if you're gonna write about people or gonna write about a place that you go there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
So I went down there. Actually, my, my father, uh, who doesn't speak any Spanish, was like my bodyguard down there with me (laughs) . It was probably (laughs) a bad idea to bring my dad with me, but we kind of went on this journey to go see if we could figure it out. He's from, you know, uh, Georgia as well, so we're like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sounds like a good way to find yourself missing.
- BEBartow Elmore
(laughs) Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right?
- BEBartow Elmore
We probably should have, uh, been more... But this is how it goes when you're a historian, and you're in graduate school, and you don't really know what you're doing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BEBartow Elmore
You're just, you're just taking risks and doing things that probably years later you're like, "Maybe this is not the smartest idea."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. You wouldn't do if you had a family.
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah, exactly, as I do now. So, and although it wasn't (laughs) that, that safe for this book either. But anyway, we go down, and we, we look into this story. And I think, to kind of answer your question, I mean, there is a trade. It's managed actually by, uh, a state g- agency in Peru called INACO. And exactly where the coca leaf comes from for Coca-Cola is a little bit unclear, you know, in the 21st century. But, but, um, if you talk to cocaieros or people who represent the cocaieros, the farmers who produce the coca leaf, a lot of what they're frustrated about is that basically Coke has this exclusive right to bring in coca leaves into the United States. Now, if you or I were to try and do that, we'd be arrested at the border, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BEBartow Elmore
Because the laws in this country now say, "You can't bring in coca leaves." Coca leaves are banned.
- JRJoe Rogan
So one company only?
- BEBartow Elmore
Basically. And by the way, yeah, this is what Pepsi... We were talking about Pepsi earlier. They were livid about this because they wanted access, and other soft drinks wanted access to this, to this supply, but the federal government was saying, "No, no, no." You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BEBartow Elmore
And trying to kind of, uh, protect that single buyer access, what we call monopsony trade.
- JRJoe Rogan
What a crazy deal.
- BEBartow Elmore
It was so crazy, and it's one of the reasons why Coke, you know, they have a unique flavor, right? They have something that no one else can get. But here's the other thing, Joe, right? So, like, think about Coke. They're everywhere. Like, you could sell this stuff in any part of the world, and I think that's the trick for Coke. How do you get stuff at cheap? Well, if everyone had access to coca leaves, you know, the price of coca leaves might be pretty high 'cause it's, you can't grow coca leaves everywhere.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BEBartow Elmore
And so because they only have access to that leaf, they get a, a great deal on the price of coca leaves. And that's what cocaieros don't like, right? They would love to be able to sell coca tea in the United States.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
They would love to be able to sell it's... you know, you name it, coca cookies, coca flour.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
But-... because of international laws that ban it. By the way, they were in part brokered by Coca-Cola. That's part of the rub.
- 18:10 – 21:05
From coke to caffeine: how Coca-Cola helped launch Monsanto
- BEBartow Elmore
So, it took time. But, you know, when I got to ... So, the coca was fun and interesting and wild. Um, but then I got to caffeine, and that's what led to this. So like, I, I, uh, I always ask people like, "Where does the caffeine come from that's in, like, soft drinks?" Or, "Do you drink caffeinated, like, beverages? Maybe not Coke, I don't know." But-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BEBartow Elmore
Okay. Have you ever wondered where it comes from?
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, you know what? I haven't.
- BEBartow Elmore
Okay. I di- (laughs) I didn't really either and I drank it all the time, but I was like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BEBartow Elmore
... I tried to Google it, as one does (laughs) , and I was like, "Where's the caffeine come from?" And I couldn't figure it out. And so I'm doing that ingredient by ingredient story for the cookbook and I get to caffeine and I'm kind of stuck, I'm like, "I, I don't know where they get it." Um, and so if you had to guess though, like what would be a guess? Would you have a good guess?
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, well, I would say, uh, you know, I'm, I'm not really exactly sure how they synthesize, syn- synthesize things, so I would say synthetic caffeine.
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But I mean, what does that mean?
- BEBartow Elmore
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's gotta have precursors, it's got, there's got to be, like, compounds-
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that they, you mix together. Like what is it?
- BEBartow Elmore
I didn't even go that far. I actually thought, like, maybe it's coffee, you know? And, and, and that wasn't right either. Um, so here- here's how it worked. Basically ... and I found all this by going to Monsanto's records in St. Louis, which was part of the beginning of this book. I got access to Monsanto's records, which was like, as a historian, this is incredible, right? I have an ability to tell a story that maybe, you know, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did they give you access?
- BEBartow Elmore
I, they had to give permission to go into their archives, to their records. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- BEBartow Elmore
I just still don't really understand why they do this, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you get a burner phone?
- BEBartow Elmore
(laughs) I, I didn't, but we'll talk about that. I did use an encrypted phone to talk to some sources inside Monsanto-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
... and stuff like that. And I, look, I was just a historian, you know, coming out of grad school who had never had training in journalism, or never really had training in the art of, like, protecting a source. And so I really had to, uh, and I give a plug to New America, this organization that, um, gave me a fellowship and I got to hang out with writers from The Washington Post and from, uh, different places that helped me think about, oh, how do you do this the right way? Um, but they did ... I had permission. And I started to see this caffeine story, like, Monsant ... This is crazy. So, but for Coca-Cola, there would be no Monsanto.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- BEBartow Elmore
Yes. Because when Monsanto, this chemical company from St. Louis that started in 1901, it was, like, barely getting by. It, it was, you know, the, the American chemical industry almost didn't exist. The Germans were really in control, they run- ran the organic chemistry. We were getting all of our chemicals from overseas. Monsanto, we think of it as, like, this monopoly, it controls everything. Back then, they were nothing. And so,
- 21:05 – 34:05
Where caffeine really comes from: waste tea, decaf byproducts, and synthetic coal-tar chemistry
- BEBartow Elmore
they needed a big contract, and so their initial buyer was Coca-Cola, and they sold Coca-Cola two things. They sold them saccharin, the artificial sweetener, um, which ultimately comes from coal tar, we can talk about that, and then caffeine, that they ... This is the crazy part, all right, this is how they did it. I would never figured it out. So basically, they took tea leaves that were broken and damaged, uh, around the world, like, on, uh, tea exchanges, like, the garbage of the tea trade, and they realized no one was gonna consume that, so it was just waste. And they s- basically swept that stuff up and processed out the caffeine from the garbage, from the waste tea, tea leaves.
- JRJoe Rogan
How many are there out there?
- BEBartow Elmore
(laughs) A lot.
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause there's so much Coca-Cola, is it-
- BEBartow Elmore
Exactly. So that's, that was what I knew was, like, "Okay, well wait a minute, this is 1901 but Coke's gonna grow."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BEBartow Elmore
And this is where your point comes in, it's gonna become synthetic, right? But at first they were like, "Okay, this waste tea tr- trade works." Then they need more c- they need more caffeine and, um, decaf coffee takes off. If you've ever wondered, like, where does all that caffeine (laughs) go, right? Like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
... if you drink decaf, I don't know, you know, if you do, but, like, all that caffeine from the decaf coffee market ended up going into soft drinks.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah.
- BEBartow Elmore
In the '50s. But nobody was really drinking decaf coffee in the early part of the 20th century, um, you know, well people wanted the caffeine kick, that was the big deal. But they still needed more, to your point. Like, they needed more caffeine. We're talking about a company that sells 1.9 billion servings of its product every day now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Holy shit.
- BEBartow Elmore
1.9 billion servings every day (laughs) .
- JRJoe Rogan
That's crazy.
- BEBartow Elmore
It is nuts.
- JRJoe Rogan
So that's like, what, one seventh of the total population?
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah, exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Something around this?
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
How many people do we have now?
- BEBartow Elmore
Seven point something, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
More than seven.
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's c- isn't it closing in on eight?
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So more than ... That's a lot of fucking servings.
- BEBartow Elmore
(laughs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
One point what was it?
- BEBartow Elmore
Y- you said it earlier, 1.9 billion servings.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's crazy.
- 34:05 – 45:15
Seeds, contracts, and the India debt narrative: what Monsanto did (and didn’t) do
- JRJoe Rogan
There was a while where, uh, mainstream news sources were reporting on the crisis with Indian farmers.
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Farmers in India that, um, they, they, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, I'll probably butcher this, but essentially, the way Monsanto engineered its seeds is, like, you grow a plant, but you don't have the use of the seeds from that plant. Like, so say, like, I'm gonna fuck this up, I'm sure-
- BEBartow Elmore
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but if you grow a tomato or a pumpkin, let's say you grow a pumpkin, then you get all the seeds from the pumpkin. Those seeds aren't viable. Like, they've engineered the, the plant to make sure that the seeds aren't viable, right?
- BEBartow Elmore
Right. That's a popular m- m- actual myth about what they've done. They've done a lot of things that-
- JRJoe Rogan
They haven't done that.
- BEBartow Elmore
They haven't done that. So they ... This came from a, a, a, a technology called, what they called Terminator-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BEBartow Elmore
... Technology from 1990, you know, the 1990s film, and it was owned by Delta and Pine & Lane Company, that they ended up acquiring in the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- BEBartow Elmore
... early 2000s. And at that time, Delta had this technology, but they didn't deploy it. And one of the things that raised all this fear about this company getting bigger and bigger was, "Oh my gosh, they're gonna get this technology and they're gonna use it." There's no evidence that we have that they have actually deployed that. The way that they prevent farmers now from re-saving their seeds and planting them is through a, uh, extremely intense contract called a technology use agreement, or TUA, that farmers have to sign. Like, a soybean farmer has to sign it and say, "I will not replant seeds that come from this harvest."
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you don't own the seeds, right?
- BEBartow Elmore
You-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that the deal? Like, you, when you buy the seeds to use them, you're essentially, like, leasing them for that season?
- BEBartow Elmore
Exactly, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BEBartow Elmore
It's like a licensing fee, in a sense.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BEBartow Elmore
And actually, this was, this was revolutionary. Like, farmers had never seen something like this in the '90s. Like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BEBartow Elmore
They were like, "Wait a minute. So you're gonna license this technology to us, and, um, we can't save the seeds and replant them?" And, you know, that, that's what led to all this havoc and chaos in farm country where farmers were saying, "This goes against, like, centuries-old practices where we were always saving seeds and experimenting with them-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
"... and challenging them." So that was a huge change to the, to the food system, but way later in Monsanto's story. I mean, they weren't even, they weren't making an- they weren't even in the ag business.
- JRJoe Rogan
I want- I definitely want to get back to-
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the beginning of it, but is, is that still going on in India? 'Cause you don't hear about that story anymore-
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah, I think-
- JRJoe Rogan
... where these farmers get massively in debt, and there was a rash of suicides, right?
- BEBartow Elmore
Right, a rash of suicides. And I think that, you know, it's, it's, it's hard to parse out that story of what's causing these, these suicides. Um, and there's some, you know, people who say the suicide rates, you know, when they look at it, well, did it increase when these seeds come in, or is it, you know, is it because of those seeds? I think the debt issue is the bigger issue, right?
- 45:15 – 55:15
Agent Orange origins: Nitro, West Virginia workers, dioxin, and what companies knew
- JRJoe Rogan
Agent Orange.
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah. Agent Orange.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- BEBartow Elmore
So let's... The, here's the story. So, so let's go back just a little bit more to get to that. So... And I talk about the whole story of Agent Orange in here, in this book. They first start making, and by they I mean Monsanto, 2,4,5-T, it's a chlorinated hydrocarbon that's an active ingredient in Agent Orange, in 1949 in a little town called Nitro, West Virginia, which I traveled to. 'Cause nobody went to go talk to the workers. Nobody went to the actual place where the people who made the herbicides. You know, to me, I, uh... you know, my dad was in Vietnam, and, and those stories are important, and I wanna talk about that as well. But it also mattered to me, like, we need to go to the root of the story, the people who actually made these chemicals. What happened there at that plant? You know? So Monsanto was making it in '49. This chemical goes back to the '40s, wartime, you know, World War II in some ways. There were some experiments with it. Monsanto's doing it in '49. Um, 2,4,5-T, the active ingredient in Agent Orange, it's actually two chemicals in Agent Orange, 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T. Um, and about 50% of each of these compounds. And the problem was with 2,4,5-T, that chemical had a contaminant known as dioxin, which Dow Chemical writing to Monsanto in 1965 said, "This is the most toxic compound we've ever seen."
- JRJoe Rogan
Holy shit.
- BEBartow Elmore
'65. And you got those Vietnam War '66, '67, '68 ramping up, you know, and, and where the spraying is gonna be going on overseas. And that could be jarring in and of itself. But in the book, you'll see, I go back to '49 at the plant where they're producing 2,4,5-T, and these workers are all sorts of tore up. Like, chlo- they have chloracne, which, um, you can probably find it on, on Google, but, you know, what it looks like. But it's basically like where your skin is peeling off. It's just these massive pustules. It's acne-like lesions that are showing that you have systemic exposure to dioxin.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- BEBartow Elmore
The workers had this. There's a guy in there, James Ray-
- JRJoe Rogan
You met these guys?
- BEBartow Elmore
Well, a lot of them were dead, um, and, or a lot of them weren't around by the time I did it, but I got, I got their files. As I say in the book, you know, they're, they're telling stories. They may not be here, but their records-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
... found in those corporate records still tell a story. And James Ray Boggs, I, I just will never forget this story, he talked about it in a deposition, 'cause he, he took Monsanto to trial. Um, in the eight... They took the- these workers years later in the '80s, took Monsanto to trial. Um, they lose that trial. And actually Monsanto puts, um, st- uh, I think liens out on their homes to make them pay the court costs-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah.
- BEBartow Elmore
... back, the workers themselves. But anyway, this is '49, f- in the '50s, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- BEBartow Elmore
So they've got chloracne on their faces. This, this is all being documented by the doctors and people in the, in the company, but... And, you know, he has to peel off his face. He literally said five times they, they used a solvent to try and peel off layers of his skin to... because of the a- of the chloracne exposure. They, they were s- They were complaining of nervousness and all these systemic health problems. Of course we now know dioxin is super toxic, and they even said it in '65, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
I need to see what this looks like.
- BEBartow Elmore
So-
- JRJoe Rogan
You got something?
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah, chloracne. And this is, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus. Like that guy who got poisoned-
- BEBartow Elmore
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
... in the Ukraine.
- BEBartow Elmore
Exactly. Um, and so you tell me. If you're seeing workers coming down with this, might you say, "Wait a minute. We might have a problem with our chemical." Right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, "You guys need to wash your face."
- BEBartow Elmore
You know? Well, in this case, you know, that's w- uh, kind of what they did. They said stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, there we go.
- BEBartow Elmore
They said stuff like, "Look."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- BEBartow Elmore
Um, you know, "You... Don't worry. This is just acne. It'll go away."
- 55:15 – 1:06:41
Roundup and Roundup Ready: exploding glyphosate use, resistance, and returning ‘old’ herbicides
- BEBartow Elmore
And then, you know, we do... When you get, as you said, to the '50s and '60s, these agricultural chemicals become a huge part of their business. But kind of back to Roundup, '70-... okay? 2,4,5-T now, now the lid's off. You know, the, the government's starting to find out about it, people are raising alarms, scientists are talking about how toxic this stuff is. And, you know, they're looking for an alternative, something that's not as toxic as this stuff, and that's when John Franz finds, uh, glyphosate. Interestingly-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- BEBartow Elmore
... you know All, like the detergent All?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BEBartow Elmore
That was a Monsanto product.
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course it was.
- BEBartow Elmore
(laughs) But it had ph- it had a phosphate-based ingredient in it that helped it clean clothes. But in the '60s, phosphate-based detergents were ending up in waterways and contributing to, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Fish death.
- BEBartow Elmore
... algae blooms and fish death.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
And so they had to get rid of that phosphate detergent, and they had all this phosphate, and they were like, "What do we do with all this phosphate?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BEBartow Elmore
Boom, All detergent, you know, and all that phosphate ends up becoming the, the building blocks of Roundup. Roundup is ultimately coming from elemental phosphorus.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- BEBartow Elmore
It's crazy. And it... But it was all designed to be healthy.
- JRJoe Rogan
I know a guy who lived in a community that was, uh, connected to a golf course, and he grew up drinking water from a well. And him and, uh, uh, uh a large number of people in the community got cancer.
- BEBartow Elmore
Hm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they firmly believed that it was because of whatever pesticides-
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that they were using, or herbicides that they were using, on the golf course, that it leaked into the wells.
- BEBartow Elmore
Can I show you what Roundup looks like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- BEBartow Elmore
... nowadays?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
Uh, Jamie, there's a, there's a, a map in there that's like a map of the country and it's kinda brown, and it shows you kind of Roundup, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's probably mostly
- NANarrator
Right?
- BEBartow Elmore
... glypho- It, it says glyphosate 'cause that's the active ingredient. But I just wanna show you the change that's happened over the last several years with glyphosate. So, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- BEBartow Elmore
... that's glyphosate. This comes from the USGS Pesticide National Synthesis Program. Um, this is what happened with Roundup Ready technology. Like, we were... This is '92. So remember I said Roundup is created in the '70s, but it's not really used that much, you know, throughout the growing season.
- 1:06:41 – 1:30:34
Dicamba drift, ‘protection from your neighbor,’ and the policing of patented life
- BEBartow Elmore
... in so many ways, right? One of the things, and this is the craziest. The plants that are now coming out are called dicamba tolerant. Most people are talking about Roundup. Dicamba is freaking crazy. Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh no, it's worse?
- BEBartow Elmore
(laughs) It's hard to say worse, you know, because when you look at these stories, you're like, what's worse? You know, the Agent Orange story or, or this? This is what's going on right now with dicamba. Because, you know, there's Roundup resistant weeds, farmers are now buying these seeds that are resistant to Roundup and dicamba, this other chemical. The problem with dicamba is when you spray dicamba over some plants, it like vaporizes in hot temperatures. So this herbicide jumps up and actually spreads onto other plants.... which is totally crazy. So like, if you're spraying in a really hot temperature, dicamba will jump and hit other farmers nearby.
- JRJoe Rogan
What? So it, it actually evaporates?
- BEBartow Elmore
It evaporates. It vaporizes, which is crazy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh. So you're spraying it, it vaporizes under what temperature?
- BEBartow Elmore
Uh, you know, summer temperatures in Arkansas, 90s, upper-80s.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) And then it just flies through the air?
- BEBartow Elmore
And guess what? You're a farmer over here who didn't buy Monsanto seeds-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- BEBartow Elmore
... that have dicamba tolerance.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- BEBartow Elmore
So you get pounded. And so I went to the court case and sat in the gallery and watched, and I was like, I wanted to hear the corporate documents 'cause they got challenged by farmers who were hit by dicamba saying, "What the hell?" You know, "We're just farming over here and we're getting hit by this vapor."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BEBartow Elmore
And the documents were like crazy. It showed that Monsanto knew that drift was gonna happen, that that was gonna happen and that-
- JRJoe Rogan
During production, like during the development of this?
- BEBartow Elmore
Not so much during development, but once it was sprayed on farms, like once farmers started spraying it, it was gonna jump and, "Oh my gosh, it's gonna start hitting this farmer over here. Uh-oh."
- JRJoe Rogan
Tough shit?
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah, basically. But they weren't thinking tough shit. They were like, "Guess what?"
- JRJoe Rogan
"They're gonna need us now."
- BEBartow Elmore
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
"'Cause then they'll need our strains that can resist this stuff."
- BEBartow Elmore
Confidential internal document released in that court case-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- BEBartow Elmore
... said they'll buy this for, quote, "protection from their neighbor."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God. Forcing people to use these monster crops. Now, there was also a story where farmers were sued because it showed that they had Monsanto crops growing on their field-
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... even though they had never purchased or had a contract with Monsanto, because of just this natural thing that happens with, whether it's the wind carrying these seeds or animals or what have you, right?
- BEBartow Elmore
Yeah. So again, one of these ones that's, that I really went in close on because I wanted-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
Episode duration: 2:52:26
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Transcript of episode R1TNFqwnM9A
