What was society's additude towards drug usage then? I know we've all heard stories of opium dens, heroin for soothing crying babies or cocaine in coca-cola, but how was this actually viewed? Was there a distinction between medical and recreational use? And how widely availabile were psychotropics in general?
As a side question, how influential was alcohol in the course of American history? I've been under the impression the taxation of whiskey was a major source of revenue for colonial/early America (with the Whiskey rebellion and such), did it truly play a major role? And, if so, did it continue to be so?
Recently I the chance to spend a morning looking through the personal letters between Jane Harrison (Britain's first female professional career academic - also had terrible handwriting) and Gilbert Murray (Classicist, public intellectual and psychic).
In the letters there is a line by Harrison: "Opium has allowed me to understand God. Nitrous Oxcide has allowed me to believe."
She was already of an advanced age when she wrote that. So two of the most prominent and respectable members of 19th century society (they could both count Prime Ministers as personal friends) could freely exchange stories regarding their recreational use of drugs. That must tell you something about how normal recreational experimentation was.
If you're looking for a fairly in depth analysis, you might want to read Forces of Habit - Drugs and the Making of the Modern World. It's a fantastic book that really delves into a lot of questions like this and is actually enjoyable to read.
Possible follow-up question; how/by whom was the term "the great binge" coined, and is it considered a "valid" term/concept within historic research?