Think drug legalisation is a good idea? Visit Fentanyl Land

In 1988, I lived on the backpackery Khaosan Road, Bangkok, in a hotel which offered heroin on room service. It went like this: in the morning, you padded down the teakwood stairs to the little kitchen and you asked the pretty Thai girl for breakfast – scrambled eggs, bacon, ‘extras’. Ten minutes later the same sweet girl would arrive in your room and graciously set down your tray, with scrambled eggs, orange juice – plus two straws of China White heroin, neatly paired on a saucer.

After that you spent the rest of the day smoking your heroin, eating tiny bananas, and lying in a hammock, chatting with all the zoned-out Italians in the hotel (young Italians in the late 1980s loved heroin). The next day you did the same, then the next. My friend and I meant to spend only a couple of weeks in that guest house.