Warnings and Lessons from Dune’s Drug Economy

Dune’s drug economy isn’t as fictional as it seems. It can be read as an allegory for many real events: the scramble for Africa, the colonization of the New World, and more. In fact, author Frank Herbert drew a lot of real-world experience to build his world and create the iconic and pesky melange supposedly based on magic mushrooms. Additionally, much of the novel’s environmental stewardship comes from Herbet’s own interactions with Indian tribes fighting against unbridled industrialism.

Helen’s face launched a thousand ships, but melange enables safe interstellar space travel, sparked interplanetary warfare, and resulted in the subjugation of the indigenous peoples of their home planet.

Given Melange’s immense influence on the events of Dune, it is clear that Frank Herbert had something to say about the commercialization of drugs. By viewing drugs as a resource or a commodity, the parallels between the novel and the realities of our world become clear and give us a fictional outlet through which to reflect on our own practices of colonization and capitalism.

Understand Dunes Drug Economics

Picture by: Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures

In the world of Dune, melange is something of a wonder drug. Its effects are so powerful that it is essentially the main ingredient for the further development of mankind at the time of the events of Dune, some 8,000 years into the future.

To help you understand what melange means, here’s a breakdown of what it can do:

• Galaxy brain: melange has the ability to unlock parts of the human mind, which leads to “powers” such as mind reading, foresight and the ability to access genetic memory. These powers can be cultivated by trained individuals or those with the correct genetic makeup. Guild Navigators, individuals whose sole purpose is to exist in a cloud of spice in a tank, use these powers to help merchant, military, and Imperial ships safely navigate the treacherous paths of space.
• Medical melange: the spice can also increase a person’s life expectancy and general health
• Day to day: Fremen use spices to make essential goods such as paper, plastics, explosives and fabrics, and various foods.

Melange occurs only on the planet Arrakis, which is inhabited by an indigenous population called the Fremen and their own kaiju-like species called sandworms. The sandworms are the key to spice production, as the excretions from their larvae form the main component of melange. As the first breeder of melange, Fremen not only discovered the entheogenic, psychotropic and hallucinogenic effects of melange, but also treated it as a vital part of their daily life and used it in many non-drug related goods and foods. They also live with the sandworms and have adapted to the inhospitable arrakis.

Enter the hegemonic powers of the world, led by the Emperor and followed by powerful feudal houses (essentially family-run conglomerates) who began to exert colonizing powers on the planet in order to harvest the spice in large quantities for their own ends.

The resulting centuries of oppression and warfare on the Fremen for this valuable resource is not unlike the colonization projects of the imperial world powers in the Global South and indigenous peoples.

Understand our own drug economy

Photo by: Matteo Paganelli

Dune’s drug economy gives us valuable insights into what our own drug economy might look like if we pursue the same exploitative approaches as in the novel. This can be broken down into three main themes:

• The commodification of drugs
• The paradox of abundance
• The destruction of nature

Note that many indigenous communities around the world have long had meaningful relationships with certain drugs, especially those used in ritual practice or as medicinal products. These practices were ostracized by early Western observers who used racist rhetoric to demonize these cultures and justify “civilizing” initiatives aimed at eradicating traditional cultures and practices.

Although the Fremen are the original stewards of the spice, they are marginalized by their colonial overlords and their knowledge of the desert and the spice is completely ignored. In fact, they are facing what we in our world call the “resource curse”. The curse, also known as the Paradox of Abundance, refers to the phenomenon of abundance of natural resources that correlates with oppression and poverty. When we read this through the lens of decolonization, we can see that this poverty is specifically due to exploitative forces ravaging the land and communities to control these resources. A real example of a country that produces coveted drugs and could fall victim to this resource curse is Afghanistan. Read more about this complex situation here.

Even as “legitimate” companies begin to dabble in drug discovery, they remain marginal in their approach to unlocking their potential. Indigenous groups struggle to be included in the conversation, even though they have many years of knowledge on the subject. Corporations benefit from psychedelic research without recognizing or involving indigenous knowledge, essentially unleashing centuries of cultural practices, while governments continue to address “drug problems” in indigenous communities today with a punitive approach. Not to mention that mainstream capitalist society continues to appropriate various aspects of traditional drug cultures to do significant damage.

The need to control the melange of arrakis eventually leads to wars between houses, which further increases the death toll from this exploitation project. Indeed, it would not be difficult to compare the houses of Dune with cartels and the empire with the overarching political and economic system under which we all exist and which make profits more valuable than human lives.

Of course, this form of high-level raw material extraction is not without its effects on the Arrakis environment. The brutal rule of the colonizers over the planet led to the exhaustion of scarce water sources, the permanent change of the landscape and the dangerous disturbance of the habitat of the sandworms, with devastating consequences for the colonizers themselves. The Fremen, on the other hand, pursue an approach of coexistence and have long been sustainable instead of melange exploitative one.

Dune’s drug economy serves as a guide and warning of environmental degradation from exploitative cultivation. For example, cannabis is a very water-intensive plant that, ironically, has a large number of growers in arid areas such as New Mexico and the northern regions of Mexico. If companies continue to strive for strictly for-profit outcomes, they will come into conflict with the needs of these vulnerable communities as climate change makes the situation worse. Reports of environmental violence in Morocco as a result of a poorly regulated system of exploitation are also a concern for the growing cannabis industry.

Whether you see Dune as a prophecy, allegory, or manual, it is important to read literary works from a critical perspective in order to derive potentially transformative lessons for our real world. Herbert’s allegories can help us to establish a legal, sustainable and inclusive drug economy that does not depend on the free emotional and spiritual work of indigenous communities and people of color and that does not take the exploitation of people or the environment for granted. Energy alternatives are already being pursued to reduce the cannabis footprint and hopefully with more innovation and an increasingly environmentally conscious society we can avoid the future that Herbert predicted.