Facts About Drug Addiction

The facts about drug addiction are that drugs have been used - and abused - since the middle ages and even before. But drug addiction as we know it became recognized as a problem in the United States in the late nineteenth century, and you might find the facts surrounding it surprising.

Does Everyone Become Addicted?

According to Gene M. Heyman, author of Addiction: A Disorder of Choice, one of the unknown facts about drug addiction is that most people who use addictive drugs do not become addicted to them. Instead, how you respond to drugs depends on the type of person you are.

Drug Addiction in History

Heyman argues that historically, drug abuse did not become an epidemic unless society had a large group of people with a surplus of leisure time and money on their hands. Historians have theorized that the Chinese had a problem with opium addiction because alcohol tended to make them sick, and they chose the opium high as an alternative. Opium was just as prevalent in European countries and in India, but addiction wasn’t an epidemic in any of these other countries.

Self Medication and the Rise of Addiction

One of the surprising facts about drug addiction is opiates were sold in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as medicine. Americans were self-reliant and rugged individualists who often didn’t have access to, or couldn’t afford, a doctor when they got sick. So they treated themselves instead with medicines they bought either from the local pharmacy or by mail through companies such as Sears, Roebuck and Company. The most popular medicines contained alcohol, opiates and cocaine.

Opiates in the U.S.

During the late nineteenth century, there were three types of opiate addicts: Opium eaters, opium smokers and heroin sniffers.

Opium Eaters

These were people who drank tinctures made up of alcohol and opium, also known as laudanum. Sometimes morphine - a much more potent drug - was substituted for opium in these mixtures.

One of the ironic facts about drug addiction is that laudanum drinkers were mostly members of the upper class. As such, they got sympathy rather than condemnation from friends and family who thought they needed medical help.

Opium Smokers

Opium smoking was brought over from China to the U.S. where it was hugely popular in mining camps, and towns where the Chinese immigrants were located. Because opium smokers were mostly poor, they were considered evil and a menace to society. One of the facts about drug addiction is it has been judged in the past by the place in society the user has. The lower the position, the more likely the use is to be condemned.

Heroin Sniffers

Bayer, the same company that developed aspirin, first brought heroin to the market in 1898. Heroin works like morphine (and was derived from it), but gets to the brain much faster. Bayer marketed it as an effective cough suppressant to help combat tuberculosis and pneumonia.

The folks at Bayer weren’t worried about addiction, because the workers who had tested heroin hadn’t become addicted. It was even marketed as a cure for morphine addiction. Eventually young, unemployed men in the major East Coast cities began sniffing heroin for recreation.

Both the opium smokers and heroin sniffers were considered an unsavory lot, and Congress eventually passed the Harrison Act of 1914. One of the unusual facts about drug addiction is we both incarcerate and provide medical care for drug use, and the idea that addiction is a disease has been accepted since the 1930s.

Rate of Addiction Then and Now

One of the more interesting facts about drug addiction is that while opiate addiction peaked in the 1890s at about 4.6 people per thousand when opiates were easily and readily available, the rate of addiction is about the same today, even with laws against opiate use.

Drug Addiction Today

Today, drug addiction is considered one of the most widespread psychiatric disorders. According to Heyman, during 2001 and 2002, almost 14 percent of Americans 18 years old and older had a history of addiction. 12.5 percent of them were addicted to alcohol and almost 3 percent were addicted to an illegal drug, while between 1 and 2 percent were addicted to both.

Learn More Facts About Drug Addiction

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