D,
I was wondering. At the same time China was going opium mad opiates (including heroin after it was invented) were freely available in the US. Could you explain why our use rates never approached China's? Links if you have them.
There is some evidence that during prohibition, the average age of onset of alcohol use went down significantly, possibly because since alcohol sale was illegal in the first place, age restrictions on sales no longer applied. (A curious parallel can be seen today; young people take up using marijuana in greater percentages and at a younger age in the US than they do in the Netherlands, where marijuana is effectively legal but regulated.)
Alcohol prohibition was largely the work of religious conservatives who saw it as a way to combat the growing hedonism of urban dwellers; a return to old-time values and morality by attacking immoral lifestyles. The Protestant majority included in this category of 'social undesirables' the Catholics, whom they associated with alcohol use. Ironically,
the passage of national prohibition marked the start of the Roaring Twenties, a period of drunken excess and sexual promiscuity that would not be equaled again until the Hippies.
Although alcohol use sharply declined immediately after the passage of prohibition, it immediately began an inexorable climb back up towards pre-ban usage levels. As public sentiment turned against prohibition, it became harder and harder to get juries to convict offenders. Finally admitting defeat, alcohol prohibition, America's "noble experiment", was repealed on December 5, 1933, and an unlucky thirteen years of government intrusion into people's lives ended in wild drunken celebrations.
http://thedea.org/prohibhistory.html
Not mentioned was the M/F ratio imbalance post WW1 and in the hippie era. As usual the "moralists" had the wrong target.
Instead of looking at some very old book for guidance they should have relied on modern research. Of no matter these days. The old religions are dying out. Gone in Europe and in a death spiral in the US. It is sad because there is some value there. The important values will be refound come the collapse. The unimportant ones will join the dust bin of history.
This final paragraph from an anti-opiate article most mirrors my understanding.
What none of the solutions—whether tending toward radical reform, or severe enforcement—addresses is the impulse that led Pavel to drugs in the first place. He is a lawyer who runs a market stall, a frustrated man who evidently prefers to corrode his veins rather than prolong his misery with sobriety and good health. Ultimately, the solution to the drug problem might be the solution to the problem of life, which is how to navigate our time here with minimal suffering. Unfortunately, the policy that offers that solution will be not a drug policy but an existential one, and it remains as elusive as ever.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113051/
I think it explains why we didn't have the opiate problems the Chinese did. We were never as unhappy. That is corroborated by our Vietnam experience where 45% of our soldiers used heroin in country and within a year in the US that number was greatly reduced. Conditions in the US were better than those in 'Nam.
Some links to the 'Nam study:
In Vietnam, soldiers who drank heavily almost never used heroin, and the people who used heroin only rarely drank. The mystery of the gateway drug was revealed to be mostly a matter of choice and availability. One way or another, addicts found their way to the gate, and pushed on through.
http://addiction-dirkh.blogspot.com/201 ... study.html
So our alcohol addiction of the pre-1914 period may have prevented heroin addiction. But the problem was neither alcohol nor heroin. It was harsh living conditions. When those abated only those with PTSD remained alcohol or heroin "addicts". And of course our "moralists" insist that punishing people with PTSD will cure them. Forgetting that it was trauma that gave them the PTSD in the first place. How Christian. I forgive those of the earlier era. All this was not well. Understood. I do not forgive those of this era where the understanding is freely available and rejected.
http://www.rkp.wustl.edu/VESlit/RobinsAddiction1993.pdf
Well all this misunderstanding is coming to an end. About 58% now favor general pot legalization and that number is still growing. On top of that the numbers favoring med pot legalization is in the 80% range. Once the drug hysteria dies down a rational look at the other drugs will be possible. Probably not in my lifetime for the other drugs. But it is coming. Because we will look at medical science rather than religion for answers. Another nail in the coffin of religion.
