Is there any evidence for the use of or addiction to morphine or other drugs (excluding alcohol) amongst returned soldiers following the First World War, particularly amongst the wounded? If so, how was this addressed?
I've just read an outstanding answer to an earlier question by /u/The_Alaskan:
in which this quote can be found:
Even at this early date, drug use was being considered a crime in the United States, not a medical condition to be addressed. Contrast this with the report drafted in the United Kingdom by a panel of experts led by Sir Humphry Rolleston. In 1924, the committee advised the British government that addiction to morphine and heroin should "be regarded as a manifestation of disease and not as a mere form of vicious indulgence."
Looking up Rolleston it appears that he was was consulting surgeon and surgeon rear-admiral with the Royal Navy during the war, and remained active on the consultative board for the Navy for many years thereafter. I'm wondering if it is this experience with wounded troops that informed his opinion, and if it emerges from knowledge of opiate addiction amongst returned ex-servicemen.
(Additional from OP)
I'm aware that the First World War followed hot on the heels of 'The Great Binge', and that the availability and use of various substances prohibited today was widespread. Future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dosed himself with his own personally-purchased supply of morphine while lying injured in a shell hole, for example. All manner of patent medicines containing now-prohibited compunds were also popular, as this excerpt from a memoir covering the siege at Kut al-Amara suggests:
Food supplies are slowly but surely shrinking in Kut al-Amara. Some of the men who want to stay on their feet at any price keep themselves going on opium pills and various other home remedies, such as a mixture of castor-oil and Chlorodyne, a well-known analgesic patent medicine with a minty taste: its active ingredients are opium, cannabis and chloroform.
[Footnote: Chlorodyne, primarily intended for the treatment of cholera, was invented by a British army doctor in India and was much copied by competitors. It was very popular at the time, though the concoction was highly addictive and could even lead to death taken in immoderate doses. It was eventually discontinued in its original composition – to the great sorrow of its many enthusiasts. Chlorodyne offers a good example of how the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were one of the most liberal periods in history where drug abuse was concerned; those involved would not, of course, have thought of it in that way].
Taken from The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund, 2011, (p.222)
In addition to my question about opiate addiction amongst ex-servicemen post-war, I'd be interested in any similar sources on drug use during the war, if anyone has any.