HEROIN ADDICTION IN BRITAIN: What Americans Can Learn from the English Experience

Much of this iconoclastic study of the British experience in treating addiction appeared in the New Yorker, but Judson's presentation deserves the permanence of hard covers. Popular mythology pictures the English maintenance program as a surrender -- an admission of an insoluble problem. Judson demonstrates, to the contrary, that the clinics have been effective in containing the spread Of addiction and even in rehabilitation. Tracing the history of heroin use in Great Britain, he concludes that the righteous indignation of most American drug experts at the idea of legally providing opiates is a reflexive response that ignores available data. The American problem is different and more complex, but Judson argues cogently that there are lessons to be learned for home use from the British accomplishment. Unlike so much sociology this book has the considerable virtue of being written with style and vigor. Splendidly provocative and likely to generate controversy.