This book explores the role and influence of drink and drugs
(primarily opium) in the Old West, which for this book is
considered to be America west of the Mississippi from the
California gold rush of the 1840s to the closing of the Western
Frontier in roughly 1900. This period was the first time in
American history that heavy drinking and drug abuse became a major
social concern. Drinking was considered to be an accepted pursuit
for men at the time. Smoking opium was considered to be deviant and
associated with groups on the fringes of mainstream society, but
opium use and addiction by women was commonplace. This book
presents the background of both substances and how their use spread
across the West, at first for medicinal purposes--but how overuse
and abuse led to the Temperance Movement and eventually to National
Prohibition. This book reports the historical reality of alcohol
and opium use in the Old West without bias.
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