Drug Use in the Pre-AIDS Era: The Relationship Between the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

National Institutes of Health, National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease - September 1995

A temporal association between the onset of extensive use of recreational drugs and the AIDS epidemic is also lacking. The widespread use of opiates in the United States has existed since the middle of the 19th century (Courtwright, 1982); as many as 313,000 Americans were addicted to opium and morphine prior to 1914. Heroin use spread throughout the country in the 1920s and 1930s (Courtwright, 1982), and the total number of active heroin users peaked at about 626,000 in 1971 (Greene et al., 1975; Friedland, 1989). Opiates were initially administered by oral or inhalation routes, but by the 1920s addicts began to inject heroin directly into their veins (Courtwright, 1982). In 1940, intravenous use of opiates was seen in 80 percent of men admitted to a large addiction research center in Kentucky (Friedland, 1989).

While cocaine use increased markedly during the 1970s (Kozel and Adams, 1986), the use of the drug, frequently with morphine, is well-documented in the United States since the late 19th century (Dale, 1903; Ashley, 1975; Spotts and Shontz, 1980). For example, a survey in 1902 reported that only 3 to 8 percent of the cocaine sold in New York, Boston and other cities went into the practice of medicine or dentistry (Spotts and Shontz). After a period of relative obscurity, cocaine became increasingly popular in the late 1950s and 1960s. Over 70 percent of 1,100 addicts at the addiction research center in Kentucky in 1968 and 1969 reported use or abuse of cocaine (Chambers, 1974).

The recreational use of nitrite inhalants ("poppers") also predates the AIDS epidemic. Reports of the widespread use of these drugs by young men in the 1960s were the impetus for the reinstatement by the Food and Drug Administration of the prescription requirement for amyl nitrite in 1968 (Israelstam et al., 1978; Haverkos and Dougherty, 1988). Since the early years of the AIDS epidemic, the use of nitrite inhalants has declined dramatically among homosexual men, yet the number of AIDS cases continues to increase (Ostrow et al., 1990, 1993; Lau et al., 1992).

Back | Table of Contents | Next

DT 950901
DOCN: NIAID95_FACT_SHEET_HIVAIDS_22

Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 1995. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1995. ÆGIS.