The Dangerous Drugs Act of 1920 was an Act which set out to control the import, export, distribution, and possession of drugs within the United Kingdom. Before this Act, drugs such as heroin, opium, cocaine, and morphine were used for medical and recreational use. Because these drugs were used so widely and without proper doses, it lead to multiple accounts of drug addiction. Drug addiction in the early 19th century was thought of as a disease. However, after many years it was realized that this "disease" was in fact not a disease and was being caused by high doses of drugs and the addiction to them. Once the government realised the real issue with drug use of society, they set out to impliment this Act in hopes of lowering drug addiction cases and raising awareness of the dangers of these drugs. 

Reading about the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1920 added a closer understanding of many of the texts we read this year. I never realised before the theme of drug use in our texts until reading about this particular Act. After this realization, it lead me to re-read and rethink the story by Christina Rossetti and her story The Goblin Market. In Rossetti's story, the two young girls are tempted by "goblin men" to buy their forbidden fruit. After one sister tasted the fruit in secret, she became addicted. All this sister wanted was more of the fruit that she was unable to recieve ever again. Once the sister became gravely sick from this addiction and desire, her sister went to the goblin men to recieve the fruit. In the end, the sister ended up licking and kissing all of the juices from her sisters face. Re-reading this story made me realise that this story is also about drug addiction. In this case the drugs were the fruit from the goblins in which the sisters knew were forbidden. The one sister's "sickness" that she fell into after eating the fruit can be seen as the drug addiction as all she craves after that is the fruit. And the only way in which she healed was to have more of fruit (drugs) in which made her sick. If doctors thought drug addiction was a disease before more research, it would make sense that Rossetti explained the sister's sickness as a disease. A disease in which the sister grew gray, refused to eat, and lost all color in her face. This addiction was displayed as a disease in the story because that was the diagnosis for many people.

In Rossessit's case, I think she might have seen addiction has a danger before other people. Whether she knew about the dangers of drugs and addiction is still unknown to me, I believe she was still trying to bring awarness to the dangers of addiciton in general. Maybe she had seen addiction and how dangerous it was first-hand. Maybe she was addicted at one point in her life. These are questions I would love to have answered, but I am glad Rossetti wrote her story this way. As it was said that Rossetti wrote it as a children's story, I believe it can warn children about drug addiction and addiction in general and the dangers that come with it.