ABSTRACT
In his book on the rediscovery of Lucretius's poem The Nature of Things, Stephen Greenblatt suggests, more or less in passing, that individuals and indeed groups of individuals can become addicted to ideas. The American Medical Association did not recognize alcoholism as a medical illness until 1956. Not until 2011 did the American Society of Addiction Medicine designate drug addiction as a disease. Meanwhile, humans have been using and abusing addictive drugs for at least 35,000 years. During the course of those millennia mankind has produced more than enough evidence to show in no uncertain terms that the power of addiction far surpasses the willpower of those who want to quit their use of a substance to which they are addicted, even when one's life is at stake. The chemical physiology of addiction converts the relatively low toxicity of the addictive substance into highly toxic material.
