Medicines of Other Times

There were times - before the invention of "drug prohibition" - when people could go to their doctors or even directly to pharmacies and get "effective psychoactive medicaments" for their ailments (cold, sore throat, cough, arthritis, physical slackness, depression ecc. ecc.) From mid-1800 to about 1920,  coca/cocaine and morphine/heroin were part of the official international pharmacopoea and were largely used by the old and young population, even by children. While some people became "addicted" to these substances, the majority  used them occasionally and for brief periods of time, without getting an assuefation. Probably a good percentage of adult people were anyway in fact "addicted" but having a continuos, cheap access to the medical "source", they didn't even realized it and continued to use small amounts of the substance(s) lifelong. Above all, there wasn't the modern stigma against drugs, the "junkies" were just unlucky people (or simply "vicious" ones) and all depended on personal self-control and medical advice....
Here is an interesting gallery of  old medical products available in those times of new discoveries and young pharmaceutical industry....
See article and complete pix gallery on Dangerous Minds