NCJ Number
129419
Journal
Insight on the News Volume: 5 Issue: 47 Dated: (November 20, 1989) Pages: 8-17
Date Published
1989
Length
10 pages
Annotation
The first drug war in the United States occurred from 1870 to 1920, when a rising tide of opiate and cocaine addiction plagued the country.
Abstract
Fueled by doctors who could do little more than alleviate patient suffering and by patent medicine men always on the hustle, drug use and abuse rose in the absence of hard evidence on the harmful effects of drugs. In 1900, legal coca put the boost in Coca-Cola, and a well-known cough syrup was laced with legal opium. By 1915, the most popular drug among abusers was heroin. Eventually, however, as people caught on the effects of drugs, drug abuse declined during a period marked by intensive public and government fear and intolerance and a series of punitive laws. By 1930, the drug epidemic had all but ended, only for it to return in the 1960's. Some historians believe that government policies of silence, exaggeration, and fabrication about drugs led to public ignorance that, in turn, encouraged the renewed drug boom of the 1960's. (Author abstract modified)