This is a book about drugs, drug addicts, and the people who try to help drug addicts — and the author, a prison doctor, thinks we’ve got it all wrong. For instance, most people think of heroin addiction as something like a terrible disease. We also tend to think that withdrawal from heroin is an appalling physical ordeal. Not so, says Theodore Dalrymple. ‘Addiction to opiates,’ he tells us, ‘is a pretend rather than a real illness, treatment of which is pretend rather than real treatment.’

Blackwell Bookshop

Purchase your copy here, 10% off RRP