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Notes -
Uh, I'm pretty sure that the laboring classes who had access to a lot of drugs have proceeded to do a lot of drugs for all of recorded history. "They drink way too much" is a pretty universal blue collar stereotype, because that's a nearly universally available drug that's priced at blue-collar affordable levels in most societies.
Opium may have existed in 1890, but it wasn't widely available in the US the way it often is now. Booze was the drug of choice for construction workers and miners suffering from nonstop pain; when we decided it was a medical issue doctors of course can't say "have you considered needing some AA?" and so prescribed oxycodone instead. I suspect that the issue will fade with the normalization of medical marijuana.
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