Elvis, who never drank or smoke, and never used illegal drugs, fell for the narrative that the pharmaceutical industry has been pushing for years - illegal drugs are dangerous, but prescription drugs are not.
To be fair to Elvis, doctors often fall for this too, mostly because they aren’t trained in pharmacology. However, as late as the 1960s, amphetamines and barbiturates' were regularly prescribed by doctors without much thought about their long term effects. “Addicts” were people who used illegal drugs, not drugs their doctors prescribed.
Read Also: Dead Bodies Don't Decompose In Space(See Why)
But prescription drug abuse was an open secret in the 1960s, so much so that the Rolling Stones wrote a song about it.
Even as physicians started to learn the effects of these drugs in the 1970s, they were still caught in a dilemma in that discontinuing a supply really could lead to a medical emergency. For example, I use two high blood pressure medications that I simply cannot stop using without risking a life threatening event. That’s common with lots of legitimate prescription drugs, but it’s also true of addictive ones.
It wasn’t until the early 1980s when former first lady Betty Ford came out as an alcoholic that people started to take middle and upper class alcoholism and prescription drug abuse seriously and actually crated programs to help people deal with it.
And let’s face it, the reason Elvis used uppers and downers was because he was trying to keep up an exhausting touring schedule. He used uppers to get on stage and downers to relax. Any symptoms he had would have been attributed to his touring schedule, not his use of drugs his doctor actually prescribed for him. He’s not the first or last performer who kept the drugs flowing by finding a new physician if a previous one suggested he cut them out.
