One Thing Mao Was Good For

The Queen of Links discovered this wonderful piece in the Daily Mail about the treatment for heroin addiction. The author, for years a prison doctor, contends that addiction is not an illness but a moral problem and most government-sponsored addiction programs are more about job security for bureaucrats than actually helping anyone. What addicts need is a reason to live (which is why 12-step programs are more effective than anything else, though he doesn't get into that). I already agreed with his thesis, but was interested to learn two little tidbits:

• "Cold turkey" withdrawal symptoms ain't that bad. That writhing in agony you know from the movies is usually a ruse aimed at obtaining more opiates.

  Not all the addicts I see exaggerate in this fashion. Some admit with a laugh that anyone w says cold turkey is terrible is lying and more than likely trying to bluff his way to getting methadone.

  As long ago as the Thirties, experiments showed that salt solution could be substituted for morphine without the addicts' knowledge, and they could be deceived out of their withdrawal symptoms.

But admitting this would put a host of government-employed counselors and pain managers out of work.

[Digression: Which reminds me of my mom's experience at the opera in Moscow before the Soviet Union collapsed. It was the dead of winter and the hall was freezing cold, so she committed the sin of keeping her coat. Arriving at her seat with her coat on, she was greeted by her imperious and obviously angry government chaperone --who was supposed to be making the Westerners feel at home-- who commanded her to take off her coat and give it to coat check. You couldn't enjoy the music because the audience was shivering and coughing with the cold! Later I asked a Soviet expert what the reasoning could possibly have been for that --after all you don't make friends by being rude and making guests uncomfortable. He said it was simple: if people don't check their coats, there's no reason for a coat-check person. End digression]

• And, not that we're condoning his methods mind you, but Mao was

  the greatest drug worker in history.

  To wit, at the time he came to power:

  China had more opiate addicts than the rest of the world put together – about 20 million.

  But Mao gave them a strong motive to give up: he shot the dealers and any addicts who did not give up their habit.

  Within three years, Mao produced more cures than all the drug clinics in the world before or since, or indeed to come.

Over at ninme's place, reader Brett Mcs observes:

It's hard to know which group is more pathetic: The heroin addicts or the tax addicts.

Let's put both in a 12-step program to find their higher power. "Hullo, my name is Roger, and I'm a taxaholic." "Hi, Roger."