ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the development of the narcotics problem in the United States and considers briefly the broader historical aspects of the problem. Morphine and heroin are derivatives of opium developed during the nineteenth century, but the history of opium itself and of its use by man begins at least several thousand years before the birth of Christ. The consumption of opiates increased enormously, far outdistancing the growth of population, during the last half of the nineteenth century. The opium smoker of the nineteenth century belonged to an elite underworld group which despised and generally avoided all contact with the hypodermic user or "opium eater" of respectable society. Unlike opium eating, the smoking habit did not involve contact with the medical profession, for doctors did not prescribe it. Hence, the habit spread solely through contacts with persons who were already addicted, and this is the manner in which drug addiction in the underworld has continued to spread.
