The more I research the more I find just about everybody had a thing for the black tar, Laudanum or Paregoric back “in the day”. [Aspirin](” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin “) wasn’t commercially available until 1899 before then the salicylic acid preparation available cause adverse side effects (digestive problems, bleeding, diarrhea and some people even died from overdose). So putting a monkey on your back was the thing to do. Nowadays only people like Rush Limbaugh or Marion Berry can get away with their blatant addictions.
FTR, heroin wasn’t black tar then; black tar specifically refers to the type of black-market heroin that is so outrageously cut up that it is sticky and black. I’ve smoked it, and it’s pretty disgusting. Just goes to show that there’s hardly anything you can do to heroin to make it unsaleable, I suppose. (In the black market, that is. If it were legal and USP regulated, I really think the world would just be that much of a safer place to live in.)
You seem to be Goomba who knows what he’s talking about. When I said “take your word for it.” I meant I had no urge to cry “no he didn’t, no he didn’t, It’s not in his autobiographies” and added it to “Stuff I’ve heard about Dr. Richard Feynman.”
I’m still Keith Richards compared to him. 
Warren Zevon took drugs all his life. He was also an alcoholic, and that messed up his career for a long time.
I think alcohol addiction is far more destructive than most drug addictions.
Forgive me no one ever believes me and it makes me defensive (no officer I haven’t been drinking, no dear I’ve never met that woman, of course I know what I’m doing) the list goes on and on. My Goombasity gets the better of me most times so I apologize.