Disagreement over the Plea

Disagreement over the Plea


Society's attitude towards drug and alcohol abuse has changed throughout the years. The drug that I picked for this assignment is heroin/opium. In the nineteenth century, hard drugs such as morphine, opium, and heroin were legal. As hard as that is to believe, what was even more bizarre is that alcohol was considered the most dangerous drug on the market, even more so as the morphine based drugs (news-medical.net). In fact, alcoholism was treated by giving the alcoholic morphine. Even though morphine is highly addictive, the thought was that it was better for the patient to be addicted to morphine rather than alcohol because a morphine addict isn't violent. Morphine addicts don't beat their wives, or engage in abusive behavior like an alcoholic. Morphine addicts tend to be withdrawn and sleep a lot (Britannica).
The reality was that consumers could open up a Sears and Roebuck catalog and order their favorite hard drug as well as hypodermic needles. This view of drug use is almost incomprehensible to our society over a hundred years later, but the truth is stranger than fiction. Before morphine was invented, people and especially soldiers that fought in the Civil War and who got injured on the battlefield had to tough out the amputations without pain medicine (Britannica). The thought of going through a difficult surgery without pain medicine has to be a fate worse than death, but it's true. So when morphine hit the scene, it was considered God's own medicine. It was hailed as a wonder drug, and the reality is that it's true. It is wonderful if used appropriately. But people have a way to abuse anything that is good, and overuse leads to addiction (Britannica).
The prohibitions of opiate based drugs were incorporated due to a racial motive, not a medical one. Society at the turn of the century had it in for Chinese immigrants, who came to America to build the railroads. They were fond of opium dens, and Americans were afraid of the...

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