In the 1960s, a confluence of major political and socio-demographic events led to the counterculture movement and propelled drugs like marijuana and LSD into the cultural mainstream. An emerging drug culture, including heroin overdose deaths from returning Vietnam veterans, mobilized the subsequent so called ‘war on drugs’ begun under the Nixon administration. This is the common point of departure for looking at the history of both drug consumption and drug control in the U.S. Yet, a better understanding requires reaching further back into U.S. history and how it dealt with some of its first challenges with drug use and addiction, dating back to the latter half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
