To argue against the ‘standard view’ of the heroin user – that a person falls victim to the violent clutches of addiction almost immediately after their first encounter with the drug – Dalrymple uses a mixture of anecdotal and scientific studies, sometimes convincingly, at other times to dubious effect, claiming that the medical fraternity, politicians, and the public give preference to the addict’s claim to victimhood despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

If this is true, why do we perpetuate these myths? One reason Dalrymple posits is that doctors wish to avoid ‘time­consuming and emotionally-exhausting’ conflicts with addicts. More sinister is Dalrymple’s suggestion that ‘where suffering exists it is necessary to employ doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, counsellors to relieve it’.

Dalrymple could have made this book a shorter and more measured distinction between the physiological and psychological aspects of heroin addiction, and the problems with current treatment. Instead, it rages against the deficiencies of the status quo, generalising addicts as spoilt children and doctors as indifferent and quick to prescribe. It is a pity that a call for a more holistic approach to the treatment of heroin addiction is eclipsed by a sense of frustration and anger that borders on sensationalism.