This is unashamedly another plug for Junk Medicine: Doctors, Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy by iconoclastic doc Theodore Dalrymple, which I first reviewed back in January, and which our medi-blogger Dr Fred Hanson mentioned in his piece a few days ago.

Almost everything you know about heroin addiction is wrong, Dalrymple says. Heroin is not highly addictive; withdrawal from it is not medically serious; addicts do not become criminals to feed their habit; addicts do not need any medical assistance to stop taking heroin; and heroin addiction is more about mentality than biology. It's great stuff. And we've got it on special offer, well below the sticker price, for Adam Smith blog readers. You save nearly £4 off the bookshop price if you buy it from our online bookstore.