I’ve often read that there were 500,000 morphine addicts running around after the Civil War. Is this true? If so, did narcotics have a deleterious effect on the Old West? How many cowboys were wacko on these then-legal drugs?
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You know, war is a bad thing. Even if we leave out combat deaths and injuries, civilian casualties, property damage, rape and pillage, lingering danger of unexploded munitions, economic disruption, refugees, famine and disease, and possible destruction of the planet, we’re still left with things like increased drug addiction. We’ve already talked about the huge increase in smoking and related diseases due to wide distribution of cigarettes to GIs during World War II. Now let’s turn to the massive upswing in narcotics addiction in the latter part of the 19th century–due, some feel, to the liberal use of morphine to ease the suffering of wounded soldiers during the Civil War.
Some historians think the war’s influence has been exaggerated. A major factor no doubt was the simple fact that more stuff became available as scientists explored the wonders of drug chemistry. Morphine, for example, was first synthesized in 1803, cocaine in 1859.
Given all this, it seems clear you can’t blame any one event for the drug culture. Still, if you want to let a lot of bad things loose in the world fast, ain’t nothin’ beats a war.
