heroin history

In the mid to late 1800’s, opium was a fairly popular drug. Opium dens were scattered throughout what we know today as the Wild West. The opium influx during this period was due in large part to the drug being brought into the country via Chinese immigrants who came here to work on the railroads.

Accurate American history tells us that famous names of the period like Wild Bill Hickock and Kit Carson actually frequented opium dens more often than saloons. The stereotyped picture we have of the cowhand belly up to the bar drinking whiskey straight after a long hard ride on the dusty trail is only part of the story of the old west. Oftentimes times the cowhand was not belly up to a bar at all. He was in a prone position in a dim candle-lit room smoking opium in the company of an oriental prostitute.

At the end of the civil war 400,000 ex-soldiers were addicted to heroin.