Civil War addiction

[Ethan S.]

Addiction has long been a problem throughout the world, and was a problem in 19th century America, as it is today, though on not such as large a scale. Everybody knows how bad today's drug epidemic is (Just last week, I saw a girl in a parked car shooting up heroin - one downside to watching National Geographic's show, "Drugs Inc" is I know what the people look like, how they act, and how to tell when they've used), but Morphine, and Opium addiction had deep roots in the During the war, and in Post Civil War years.

Inside the Story of America’s 19th-Century Opiate Addiction

Doctors then, as now, overprescribed the painkiller to patients in need, and then, as now, government policy had a distinct bias

www.smithsonianmag.com

 

[infomanpa]

...and here I thought this was going to be a thread about addiction TO the Civil War.

 

[Ethan S.]

...and here I thought this was going to be a thread about addiction TO the Civil War.

It didn't cross my mind when I titled it. Sorry 'bout that!

 

[diane]

I've seen it asserted that our current drug problem goes all the way back to the Civil War - there were lots and lots of wounds that never quite healed or healed poorly, which led to the mixing up of Coca-Cola! Sugar syrup with cocaine. 7Up used to have lithium in it. But there were a lot of addicts who never meant to be that. William B Cushing comes to mind. He was probably our first commando, blew up the CSS Albemarle, but in doing so sustained a severe hip and back injury. He did all right for a few years but it began to be chronic and eventually his addiction to whatever would kill the pain landed him in an asylum for the rest of his life.