San Francisco has a long tradition of tolerance toward drug use. During the Gold Rush of the 1840s, Chinese immigrants opened rooms for smoking opium. Authorities sometimes broke them up starting in the mid-1860s, but San Francisco’s leaders did not ban opium dens until 1875. Opium smoking in San Francisco continued well into the twentieth century but was gradually supplanted by heroin. “San Francisco had twice as many alcohol outlets per capita compared to the national average going back at least until the late nineteenth century,” said Stanford’s Keith Humphreys.
