> I don't know much about the subject but when I try to do a bunch of cursory searches, most of what I find are histories on alcoholism and the variety of treatment methods.

And alcohol is a very strange drug. It doesn't quite work like others. For example, if you block the high, most people quit wanting opioids. That doesn't seem to be true of alcohol. In addition, drying you out from alcohol seems to actually damage the impulse control centers in your brain, so avoiding relapse is much more important. etc.

> It's also worth noting how small the problem with cocaine and other opiates was in the past. The crack cocaine epidemic was probably the first time the nation as a whole had to learn what this stuff actually was.

I think the real issue is that modern production methods at that point started making far more potent drugs.