The reason why alcohol was such a deadly addictive drug to early Indians, but not so much to Mediterranean people, was because the latter, over thousands of years of wine use, had bred out people most susceptible to alcohol addiction.
Same goes for the diseases that killed most Indians in north south and central america. the death toll was over 90%
an interesting question posed by scientists was this: why did the black death only kill about 40% of europeans? (that is, why didn’t it kill over 90% of the european population like european and african diseases killed amerindians?)
turns out the first time the black death burned through europe was about 1900 BC. There were small cities all over europe at the time. they died out. scientists found traces of the killer virus in their bones.
that earlier back death is widely credited with clearing the way for the steppe people (from roughly today’s ukraine) to invade Europe after 2000 BC.