Dalrymple’s speech at this year’s festival, organized by the Institute of Art and Ideas in Hay-on-Wye, is a recap of the argument from his book Romancing Opiates, an argument that I’m sure can be a little eyebrow-raising at first. Dalrymple begins the speech:

It’s my contention, if you’re an average audience, at least an audience interested in this subject, that everything you think you know about heroin addiction and addiction to other opiates is false. It belongs to the realm of mythology that has been assiduously peddled down the ages so that even doctors who should know better believe the myths.

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