7. The Context of WWI and its Aftermath Led to a German Drug Epidemic
Before the evils of narcotics and the harmful effects of addiction were fully understood, drugs did not carry much of a moral stigma. German chemical research was fueled by the sale of morphine, first distilled from opium by a German chemist in the early nineteenth century, and patented by Merck not long afterwards. Further research on opium, morphine, and their derivatives, led to their inclusion in popular (and over the counter) products such as cough suppressants and household pain relievers. The pharmaceutical giant Bayer made a killing off of heroin, which was legal in Germany until the 1950s.
The widespread tolerance towards drugs was further boosted by WWI and its aftermath. There were millions of casualties, many of whom needed drugs for prolonged periods during recovery, and the authorities’ were less concerned with the drugs’ addictive properties, and more with their effectiveness as pain relief. It was in that context that Germany experienced an under-reported but widespread epidemic of hard drug addiction in the 1920s and 1930s, mostly by veterans who got hooked on drugs taken for pain relief, or medical personnel who had easy access to such drugs.
