"drink corn likker, let the cocaine be"

Here in the United States, opiod overdoses and methamphetamines grab a good deal of press when it comes to "drug addictions."

Interesting that the single greatest drug addiction in the United States is, today, as it was yesterday, alcohol. The fact that alcohol is "legal" seems to throw dust in the eyes of anyone seeking a serious discussion of drug addiction. As far as I know, the addiction doesn't mind.

But this morning I woke up with the early-20th-century Appalachia folk song that lamented the encroachments of cocaine and the damage it could do. The song rattled around in my mind. The refrain went:

Listen to me!
Listen to me!
Drink corn likker
Let the cocaine be.
Cocaine gonna kill
My honey dead.

It was a time when laudanum (from the Latin laudare, to praise) -- a miracle of pain-killing marvels that wowed a mid-19th century constituency -- was getting attention as a drug that had previously been sold without a prescription. Opium, cocaine ... oh the magic. And alcohol remains the king.