when I began to think about it in relation to the last time drugs were sold freely in the United States—before 1914—that I started to understand. Remember the transformation Henry Smith Williams lived through. Before the ban, almost all opiate users would buy a mild form of the drug at their corner store for a small price. A few did become addicts, and that meant their lives were depleted, in the same way that an alcoholic’s life is depleted today.
