Once gain Kuger...my double like button does not work.....Aurumguy...stop refrencing the civil war and wild west in relation to the "Gold Rush"..which was a very Brief period from 1848 to barely '51 '52 anything after that is really should just be called life in the New State of California. In the camps of the Motherlode and the Northern Goldfields (different places) Kugers description is spot on. Companies of men trying to better themselves and Moving from place to place learning to mine by mostly trial and error. Cold wet winters followed by muddy messes of spring. Dry and Hot in the summer, Disease was rampant. All kinds of nasty critters thrive in the warm pools of creeks in the summer and peoples understanding of sanitation and the spread of disease, were nothing like they are today. yes there were whores in San Francisco, Sacramento, and Stockton...But you did not just go back and forth from the Goldfields to the Coast or the Delta. Most only went back there so they could go back East, and yes there were "Businesses there trying to squeeze the last of the dust from any foolish fellow who would partake. In the foothill camps there were not really any available women...A few wives and family members....initially to pass time and have fun when they had the chance... the men actually danced together... making light of the fact that there were no women...or in fact if a women did happen to be there....they actually stood in line to take their turn dancing with her....not because they were horny.... but, because they were homesick, and missed the only life they knew before heading west. Like Kuger I put way more stock into first hand evidence and period first hand accounts..there are some good published history books but, they have never attended a day of public school.And it does bug, me that there is this thing that we have to show how horrible our forefathers were....drunks and druggies...is it so we can make society today feel better about themselves
?? I think not mainly embellishment of facts...just because coke, weed, opium, and alchohol existed does not mean that it was a main driving factor in day to day life. When you spend a lot of time in the Canyons, creek bottoms and woods here and you see how much work was done by hand, it is very obvious that you are not looking at the work of doped up teenage party animals. Those 5 foot 4 easterners lived on Lean Game meat, the occasional thick cut steak, Carbs and dirty water. If you look at the tintypes you can see that they absolutely had built up the strength to pick you up over their head if you questioned their virtue. By the way Heroin was not created until 1874...so the presence of an opium den does not maean that there was also Heroin...Maybe it is time to go spew ignorance on an other forum.
(Dizzy Digger is mostly right with his statements.)
Heroin was ingested and opium was smoked before syringes. (get a spell checker, it is painful to read what you write) Heroin is made much like cocaine. Solvents were being used thousands of years ago to make fragrant oils. This process is the same process needed to make heroin or cocaine. It is not exactly the same but similar.
Just because you haven't done your homework, don't expect me to put up with your not knowing the truth. Educate yourself a bit more on the subject and you will see where Alchemy was used many thousands of years ago. As I said several times, history has been rewritten to fit some politically correct version of what historians want you to think is the truth.
When you study the history of a certain age, you have to understand the history of the years that preceded the years of the Gold Rush. I was just pointing out that syringes were available and were starting to be used to directly inject heroin, cocaine, and medicines before the the Gold Rush.
Just because cocaine hydrochloride was invented in the 1880's during the gold rush era, cocaine was being injected prior to that from the ease of making cocaine by the central and south Americans. It was rampantly used.
Just because a show on TV shows people not using drugs during a certain era certainly doesn't mean that it was not happening.
Also, THC was bred out of Hemp after Thomas Jefferson was growing hemp with the Ruderalis strain cross that we know today. Why, because people did get blasted by smoking Hemp..... especially when Jefferson wrote about female plants that were not seeded. The non-seeded strains of sativa/indica crosses deliver about 25% THC per dried matter. Hemp was and is marijuana.
Even though Kuger grew up in these areas and says he knows his stuff. I can only say that Kuger was sheltered at best to not stray that way of knowing in his life. Therefore his sheltered understanding of the history around him is good for him. Like I said, some people can't handle the truth and it does seem that Kuger is so defiant in this way or just blame hard headed, that he will never learn anything more that what he thinks he knows. This is good for Kuger because he would be too perplexed to understand that he was/is wrong. Let him be wrong, I don't care. I am not here to teach those that can not learn.
I simply mentioned that any TV show that does not include drug use in the Wild West era or the use of marijuana by Native Americans, and the use of drugs by miners is in essence telling a lie by not telling the whole truth. Children don't need to understand this stuff though. They can just go out of their front door or go to school these days and find out more than this TV show tells about the demeanors of adults and children their own age using drugs.
I have pointed out many instances where our Nation's past history is combined with this drug use and it has never stopped today and it certainly never stopped in the Wild West, Gold Rush, WW1, WW11, Korean war, Vietnam, or even today in Afghanistan where a large bulk of all heroin comes from still today.
Drug use has never changed in our Nation's history and it certainly didn't stop just for the Gold Rush or the Wild West days no matter what the likes of any Kuger minded person says.
I was glad to see that Mercury was mentioned as I pointed out as being highly toxic. Sometimes mercury pills were used to help the mercury poisoning from mining. This was a double whammy to the body and brain. Lead was used as a sealant in canning techniques used in this era to seal all canned goods. It made you crazy. If you add that with some liquor, and your drug of choice, the mind can not handle reality the way it should. This made people kill without thinking about the consequences. Drugs, poison from mercury, lead poisoning, and liquor make a crazy cocktail for the brain to deal with.
