Poppycock
Theodore Dalrymple at The Wall Street Journal via The Manhattan Institute - Mr. Dalrymple claims, from interactions with thousands of addicts, that heroin withdrawal isn't as bad as they say. Never did it myself, so I don't know. Somehow, I think Mr. Dalrymple has also never done it himself. I do know, however, from quitting other addictions, that a strong desire to quit is the key. [root]
When, unbeknown to them, I have observed addicts before they entered my office, they were cheerful; in my office, they doubled up in pain and claimed never to have experienced suffering like it, threatening suicide unless I gave them what they wanted. When refused, they often turned abusive, but a few laughed and confessed that it had been worth a try. Somehow, doctors--most of whom have had similar experiences-- never draw the appropriate conclusion from all of this. Insofar as there is a causative relation between criminality and opiate addiction, it is more likely that a criminal tendency causes addiction than that addiction causes criminality.
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It is not true either that addicts cannot give up without the help of an apparatus of medical and paramedical care. Thousands of American servicemen returning from Vietnam, where they had addicted themselves to heroin, gave up on their return home without any assistance whatsoever. And in China, millions of Chinese addicts gave up with only minimal help: Mao Tse-Tung's credible offer to shoot them if they did not. There is thus no question that Mao was the greatest drug-addiction therapist in history.
