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vii.1 Drug Employ in History

Learning Objectives

1. Discuss the presence of drugs in ancient times.
2. Summarize the apply of drugs in the United States during the nineteenth century.
3. Explain the racial footing for decisions to ban opium, cocaine, and marijuana in the United States.

Shakespeare in one case wrote that "what's past is prologue." This familiar phrase means that what happened in the by provides a context for, and can help to understand and predict, the future. To the extent that the by is prologue, the history of drug utilize provides a sobering lesson: Drug use has been common since ancient times and has been common in most every society. As a contempo book on drug policy states, "People have used chemicals to alter their state of mind since before at that place were written records" (Kleiman, Caulkins, & Hawken, 2011, p. eighteen). If past is indeed prologue, then information technology is no surprise that drug use remains common in gimmicky nations despite considerable efforts to reduce it.

One manifestation of the long history of drug utilize is that humans take used mind-altering plants since prehistoric times. "Early humans discovered that eating some plants gave a feeling of relaxation, happiness, drowsiness, or peace," one scholar writes. "Some gave a feeling of increased energy, alertness, and stamina. And some caused strange sensations, terrifying visions, or a greatly different awareness" (Gahlinger, 2004, p. five).

Ancient Greeks drank poppy juice, which contained opium, around 300 BCE. Employ of other drugs was as well common in ancient times.

Examples of drug employ thousands of years ago abound (Escohotado, 2010; Faupel, Horowitz, & Weaver, 2010; Goodman, Sherratt, & Lovejoy, 2007). Mead, an alcoholic potable made from fermented honey, was commencement used about 8000 BCE, and beer and berry wines were first used virtually 6000 BCE. The ancient Sumerians used opium starting about 5000 BCE. Ancient Egypt used alcohol in 3500 BCE, while ancient China used cannabis (the source of marijuana) around 3000 BCE. Ancient people in what is at present Switzerland ate poppy seeds (the source of opium) in 2500 BCE. Coca leaves (the source of cocaine) have been chewed for thousands of years. Folk medicines made from plants and herbs have also been used since ancient times. People in ancient Palestine drank wine in 350 BCE. Ancient Greeks drank poppy juice in 300 BCE. In most the same period, S American tribes used a hallucinogen called cohoba, made from mimosa beans. The Chinese and other Asians were using opium regularly by 1000 CE. Native Americans used tobacco earlier being discovered by Columbus in 1492. The employ of various drugs has also been common in the many societies that anthropologists take studied (Durant & Thakker, 2003; Page & Singer, 2010).

Sociologist Erich Goode (2008, p. 176) summarizes the history of drug apply equally follows: "Humans have been ingesting drugs for thousands of years. And throughout recorded fourth dimension, significant numbers of nearly every gild on earth have used one or more drugs to achieve certain desired physical or mental states. Drug use comes close to existence a universal, both worldwide and throughout history."

Drug Use in US History

This history of drug use includes the United States, where by is over again prologue. During the colonial era, tobacco was a major ingather in Virginia and other colonies thanks to slave labor. Afterward being processed, it was commonly used by colonists and also exported to Europe in great quantities (Gately, 2001). From the earliest colonial days, booze was another drug used in great quantities, as "Americans were drinkers right from the offset" (Genzlinger, 2011, p. C1). The Mayflower, the historic transport that brought the first Puritans to what eventually became the United States, was filled with barrels of beer. In colonial New England, rum manufacturing was a major manufacture, and rum drinking was common. During the early on 1770s, New England had more than than 140 rum distilleries, and rum consumption in the colonies averaged 7.5 million gallons annually. This massive drinking has led one author to telephone call rum "the real spirit of 1776" (Williams, 2006). Rum was as well a major export to Europe and elsewhere. In addition to rum, colonists routinely drank beer and hard cider.

During the nineteenth century, Americans began to use drugs other than alcohol in great quantities. 1 pop drug was coffee. Before the Ceremonious War, Americans who drank coffee had to buy dark-green (unroasted) coffee beans in bulk and roast their own coffee. Then in 1865, John Arbuckle, a Pittsburgh grocer, began selling roasted coffee inside a new invention—the paper bag. His bagged coffee was an instant hit beyond the nation, other coffee manufacturers followed adjust, and java employ by Americans profoundly increased.

Booze also remained a very popular drug, and use of this drug during the 1800s was probably greater than during colonial America. Two reasons assist account for this trend (Faupel et al., 2010). One reason was the western frontier. Equally the nation moved west, many of the explorers and settlers who led the way were men who were unmarried or, if married, men who had left their families behind. To put it mildly, they drank a lot, fought a lot, and gambled a lot. A second reason was that many Irish immigrants came to the United States during a great wave of immigration that began in the mid-nineteenth century. Although information technology might sound like a stereotype, the Irish drank a lot of alcohol back in their homeland, and they continued to exercise so one time they reached the United States. Regardless of who was drinking, heavy alcohol utilize contributed greatly to poverty, to physical assaults and homicides, and to domestic violence and other family unit problems.

3 other popular drugs in this era were opium, cocaine, and marijuana. Utilise of these drugs was and then common that nineteenth-century America has been chosen a "dope fiend'southward paradise" (Brecher, 1973). A brief discussion of these drugs' histories will underscore the widespread utilize of drugs in the American past and also racial issues that arose when laws were passed to ban these drugs (Musto, 1999).

Opium

During the decades before and after the Ceremonious War, the apply of opium was extremely mutual (Goode, 2012). Beyond making people feel proficient, opium is an effective painkiller and cough suppressant. Appropriately, it was a staple in many patent medicines, elixirs and tonics, sold back then in apothecaries, general stores, and other venues. Big numbers of people from all social backgrounds used these opium-laced medicines for bug such as low, headaches, menstrual cramps, and toothaches. Information technology is not much of an exaggeration to say that the United States was a nation of opium users during this period; an estimated 500,000 Americans were addicted to opium by the end of the century. Every bit anthropologist Robert B. Edgerton (1976, pp. 57–58) summarizes the situation, "The use of opium was widespread in all segments of American society. Children were calmed with opium derivatives, women used many popular patent medicines which were liberally larded with opiates, and 'opium dens' were probably present in all cities and most towns as well."

Opium was a common ingredient in nineteenth-century tonics and elixirs that were sold widely to the public.

Attendance at opium dens (the equivalent of today's bar or tavern, with opium the drug of choice rather than alcohol) was a popular activity for the Chinese immigrants who began coming to the U.s.a. during the 1850s to help build the nation's railroads and perform other jobs. White workers feared their growing numbers equally a threat to their jobs, and racial prejudice against the Chinese increased. Politicians, labor unions, and other parties began to focus on the Chinese habit of smoking opium at opium dens and warned that the Chinese were kidnapping little white children, taking them to the opium dens, and turning them into "opium fiends." This campaign had two furnishings: it increased prejudice against the Chinese, and it increased public business about opium. This ascent business concern led San Francisco in 1875 to become the kickoff locality to ban opium dens. Other California cities did the aforementioned, and the state itself banned opium dens in 1881. 3 decades later, the federal government banned the manufacture, sale, and use of opium (except for use with a medico's prescription) when it passed the Harrison Narcotics Act in 1914.

Cocaine

Cocaine was another drug that was very popular in the nineteenth century, beginning in the 1880s, thanks in role to enthusiastic claims by Sigmund Freud and American physicians that cocaine could assist salve asthma, low, hay fever, sexual impotence, toothache pain, and a host of other problems. Similar opium, cocaine was a popular ingredient in the many patent medicines that people bought at various stores, and the The states Army Surgeon-General advocated its medical use. It was a major ingredient in a new beverage introduced in 1886, Coca-Cola, which became an instant hit because people naturally felt and then good when they drank Coke! During the adjacent two decades, however, concern grew about cocaine's furnishings. Some of this concern was fueled by the absurd belief that African Americans who used cocaine became extra stiff, dangerous, and even invulnerable to bullets. Cocaine was heavily taxed past the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act and later banned.

Marijuana

A third legal drug during the tardily nineteenth century was marijuana. Information technology joined opium and cocaine in being a mutual ingredient in patent medicines, and it was a popular drug for bug like migraine headaches, menstrual cramps, and toothache pain. Afterwards the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Mexicans moved to the United States in increased numbers and brought with them their habit of marijuana use. Whites feared that Mexicans would take their jobs, and, similar to what happened with opium and Chinese immigrants during the 1870s, began to charge that Mexicans who used marijuana would go vehement and more likely to rape and murder innocent white victims. This racially prejudiced merits increased concern well-nigh marijuana and helped lead to the federal Marijuana Taxation Act of 1937 that banned its use.

This brief history shows that drug use has been role of the American culture ever since the nation began. If past is prologue, information technology should come every bit no surprise that drugs remain part of the American civilization today, and it should likewise come as no surprise that efforts to reduce or eliminate drug use oftentimes see with much resistance and picayune success. As the United States continues to endeavour to deal with drug utilise, these basic facts must not be forgotten.

Key Takeaways

• Drug use has been common since ancient times.
• Alcohol was widely drunkard in colonial America. During the latter nineteenth century, opium, marijuana, and cocaine were legal drugs that were besides widely used.
• Racial prejudice played an of import function in decisions during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century to ban opium, marijuana, and cocaine.

For Your Review

1. Were you lot surprised to read that listen-altering drug use has been common since aboriginal times? Why or why not?
2. Were y'all surprised to read that racial prejudice helped pb to bans on opium, marijuana, and cocaine? Why or why non?

References

Brecher, East. M. (1973). Licit and illicit drugs. Boston, MA: Petty, Brown.

Durant, R., & Thakker, J. (2003). Substance use and corruption: Cultural and historical perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Edgerton, R. (1976). Deviance: A cross-cultural perspective. Menlo Park, CA: Cummings.

Escohotado, A. (2010). The general history of drugs (Grand. W. Robinette, Trans.). Valparasio, Chile: Graffiti Milante Press.

Faupel, C. E., Horowitz, A. M., & Weaver., Thou. S. (2010). The sociology of American drug use. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Gahlinger, P. (2004). Illegal drugs: A complete guide to their history, chemistry, utilize, and abuse. New York, NY: Penguin.

Gately, I. (2001). Tobacco: The story of how tobacco seduced the world. New York, NY: Grove Press.

Genzlinger, N. (2011, Oct i). Bellying up to the time when America went dry. New York Times, p. C1.

Goode, E. (2008). Deviant behavior (eighth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Goode, East. (2012). Drugs in American lodge (8th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Goodman, J., Sherratt, A., & Lovejoy, P. E. (Eds.). (2007). Consuming habits: Drugs in history and anthropology (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Kleiman, M. A. R., Caulkins, J. P., & Hawken, A. (2011). Drugs and drug policy: What everyone needs to know. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Musto, D. F. (1999). The American affliction: Origins of narcotic control (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Page, B., & Singer, 1000. (2010). Comprehending drug use: Ethnographic Research at the social margins. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Williams, I. (2006). Rum: a social and sociable history of the real spirit of 1776. New York, NY: Nation Books.

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Source: https://open.lib.umn.edu/socialproblems/chapter/7-1-drug-use-in-history/

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