Patterns of opiate use in the USA and England

The Evolution of the Drug Addict

By Amber Robinson

Discuss changes in patterns of Opiate Use and Addiction and in social perceptions of opiates in the united states and england in the 19th and 20th Centuries

There has been major shifts in the attitude towards opiates and users over the 19th and 20th Century, from its initial state as a medical issue to the current status as a matter for the legal system. While the actual nature of opiates and their physical effect on the body in the 1800's is the same as today, the political and social climate has undergone vast changes. It is through social perceptions that the concept of 'addiction' is constructed and maneuvered; these perceptions are indiscriminate to the inclusion of racial, economic and political prejudice and is crucial to the understanding of contemporary attitudes towards opiates. The historical evolution of drug prohibition is the primary concern of this paper, examining the political situation of America and Britain in the 1900's, the ramifications of the USA's criminalisation of drugs and Britain's adjacent medicalisation strategies, and the events leading up to the international prominence of a 'war on drugs' today.

BRITAIN ST.

Person washing his hands

Drug Enforcement Administration special agents

Drug addiction in the 19th Century was prevalent in both British and American society where opiate usage was copious and widespread by today's standards, mostly unrestricted and unimpeded by social condemnation. Opium was a household product in Britain, used to treat epidemics like cholera, malaria, fever and diarrhea that tormented the country in the 1800's (Booth, 1996). The opium consumption rate rose 2.4% for every year between 1831 and 1859 (ibid), documenting the increasing dependence on it not only to remedy legitimate disease, but ease depression, control children and their appetites, as an intoxicant, and later for its poisonous properties. The latter was discovered in the first...