Chapter 1 A History of Narcotics: Uses and Abuses

In order to understand any social phenomenon in depth, it is necessary to place it in a historical context. Nowhere is this truism more valid, and nowhere is it more often ignored, than in current discussions of 'the drug problem'. Here, arguments have become so heated, and so politically charged, that we are in danger of losing the ability to stand back from the problem and consider objectively what it actually is. The problem has become 'reified', as it were: it has come to be seen as self-evident as if the use of particular substances by definition leads to certain consequences, regardless of the historical or cultural setting in which it takes place.