On Prohibition and Opiates.
[link|http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1270531|Choose your poison].
Will the hysteria about heroin one day seem equally quaint [as that about tea]? Tom Carnwath, a senior doctor working with drug users, and Ian Smith, a former heroin user turned social worker, certainly think so. In their level-headed, informative and witty book, they point out that opium was seen until a century ago as a huge benefit. Like aspirin, it cured many ills with mild side-effects. Indeed, by coincidence, both heroin and aspirin were isolated within a fortnight of each other in 1897 by the same team of German researchers\ufffdwho thought heroin the more medically useful product.
[...]
Mr Husak's destruction job is elegantly argued and philosophically informed. Will common sense win? Will drugs one day be as available as tea? Mr Husak reminds us of Senator Morris Sheppard's jut-jawed prediction, three years before prohibition's repeal, that the re-legalisation of alcohol sales was as likely as a humming bird's flying to the planet Mars \ufffdwith the Washington Monument tied to its tail.\ufffd
[link|http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~dart/11-10.html|Opiates] are different from other drugs because they're so very similar to chemicals that bind to receptors in the brain. They're strongly addictive.
It's hard to imagine someone seriously arguing that [link|http://www.heroinaddiction.com/heroin_hist.html|heroin] (excellent link, BTW) is a good drug. The book sounds like an interesting read - I'm skeptical though that it's well argued.
Cheers,
Scott.