Substance Dependence - History

History

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

The phenomenon of drug addiction has occurred to some degree throughout recorded history (see "Opium"). Modern agricultural practices, improvements in access to drugs, advancements in biochemistry, and dramatic increases in the recommendation of drug usage by clinical practitioners have exacerbated the problem significantly in the 20th century. Improved means of active biological agent manufacture and the introduction of synthetic compounds, such as methamphetamine are also factors contributing to drug addiction.

Read more about this topic:  Substance Dependence

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.
    Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)

    False history gets made all day, any day,
    the truth of the new is never on the news
    False history gets written every day
    ...
    the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
    sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
    asking the clay all questions but her own.
    Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)

    Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.
    Albert Camus (1913–1960)