People often wonder how modern policies, laws, and attitudes developed. For the most part, they are based on historical records of actions or incidents that occurred in the past, that were of such severity or consequence that it required government intervention to set standards and rule to protect the general population. Modern day drug policies are one example of how history can be so misconstrued that it's credited with things that never happened.

There is a misperception that the first widespread abuse of an opiate drug occurred during and immediately after the Civil War. This is frequently referred to as Soldier's Disease. But the truth is, there are absolutely no records whatsoever that keep a tally of addicts who emerged from the fighting. It is a widely accepted term, and "fact" that has no basis, which is why it seldom receives more than two or three lines in any historical mention.

However, more than a century after the war ended, Gerald Starkey would write in a book put out by the National District Attorneys Association, that the Civil War produced 400,000 addicts who were enslaved by the only drug on hand to be used for the horrific wounds of the battlefield.

Starkey does not name any source. Nor are there any such records in National Archives.