Withdrawal from heroin is a trivial matter

We live in Keynesian times: the answer to the economic problems created by a mountain of debt frittered away on trifles is clearly a whole mountain range of debt frittered away on trifles. In the circumstances it is good to know that a judge has done his bit to stimulate the general improvidence — sorry, the British economy. He has awarded £11,000 each to three prisoners in Winchester Prison who underwent withdrawal from heroin without benefit of further doses of heroin or of methadone and other heroin substitutes. It was against their human rights, he said.

This is indeed odd. It is doubtful whether anyone ever dies from withdrawal of opiates alone. In reviewing the medical literature between 1875 and 1968, the doctors and researchers Glaser and Ball were unable to find a single case of death from withdrawal of opiates, despite the fact that the literature covered many thousands of cases.