Share 'Opium, opiates and illicit drugs in the Old West'

If you think drug addiction is a recent problem, look back into the annals of the old west and beyond. Laudanum (an alcoholic tincture of opium) was widely used in the 1800's as a pain reliever before aspirin came onto the scene. Here’s some notable users: Lord Byron, Kate Chopin, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe. Its use i…