How Can Loving Parents Do That?!

Recently, it came to my attention that very few people are aware of the infamous “Midwest Children’s Opium Epidemic of the 1880s.” In the years after the Civil War, as Americans expanded westward, children were smoking opium and getting addicted, primarily in the cities of Kansas City, Topeka, and Wichita. The parents of these children provided the opium, and approved of their offspring getting high on a daily basis. Even when the children started to have major problems as a result of their addiction, parents continued to give them the drug. Most parents explained that their kids really enjoyed opium, and if they took the narcotic away, the children would be ostracized and teased at school. The Kansas City Star reported that many parents were unwilling to have their children be the only kids in school who didn’t smoke opium. The epidemic, which began in the early 1880s, continued unabated for a full decade. 

I am quite surprised that more people are not aware of this embarrassing chapter in U.S. history. It’s just mind-boggling that so many otherwise sane adults let their precious children be ravaged by a powerful drug for so long.

Actually, I suspect the main reason so few people are aware of the infamous “Midwest Children’s Opium Epidemic of the 1880s” is the fact it never happened. That’s right, I just made it up. But I bet as you were reading the first paragraph you were getting rather upset. “How could parents do that?!” you were most likely thinking. “How could they watch their kids ruin their lives, and yet do nothing?!” 
Loving and sane parents would never do that, right? They would never willingly give their children a powerful mind-altering substance and just passively stand there while their kids’ lives were destroyed, right?

Well, don’t be so sure. A similar situation is taking place right now, and unfortunately it’s not something I just made up. Today countless parents are providing their children with a highly addictive product, and are just standing by passively as the kids’ lives are being ruined. The powerful mind-altering drug being given to America’s youth today is the deadly cocktail of smartphones and social media.

Studies have found that emotional issues and mental health problems among adolescents have skyrocketed in recent years. It’s at epidemic levels now. A major spike in children’s mental health problems began right around 2012. Why then? Because that was the time when the majority of youngsters fully embraced smartphones and social media. 

The federal Health and Human Services website has this to say about the issue: “Children and adolescents who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems including experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety. This is concerning, as a recent survey showed that teenagers spend an average of 3.5 hours a day on social media. And when asked about the impact of social media on their body image, 46% of adolescents aged 13-17 said social media makes them feel worse.”

Today’s drug dealers work in fancy office buildings, making tons of money for online services such as Tiktok, Snapchat, and Instagram. It’s been proven beyond a doubt that these companies develop their products to be highly addictive, especially for young people.

I hope a hundred years from now, folks are not talking about the infamous “U.S. Children’s Social Media Epidemic of the Early 2000s,” and wondering how loving and sane parents could have stood by passively and allowed their kids to be harmed so much. Unfortunately, the way things are going today, this will be a major topic for historians and sociologists to investigate. That is, of course, unless our entire society collapses before then.