Why read Alcohol and Opium in the Old West?

Book cover of Alcohol and Opium in the Old West

Book description

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…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Alcohol and Opium in the Old West as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Randi Samuelson-Brown

Author

By now, readers can get a sense of where my recommendations are going with all of this. Life in the West was hard, and alcohol and drugs were turned to (often) to help reduce the pain, discomfort, and loneliness of living in the western United States. Whiskey tended to be of poor quality, drugs were not known to be addictive, and a lot of the stereotypical old west behavior stemmed from the use of liquor and drugs – often to the detriment of the users…and innocent bystanders.

From Randi's list on The best books on the dark side of the Wild West – prostitution, bad whiskey and drugs.