ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns with addiction to the opiate-type drugs and their synthetic equivalents. It investigates the fact that some persons who experience the effects of opiate-type drugs and use them for a period sufficient to establish physical dependence do not become addicts while others under what appear to be the same conditions do become addicted. The chapter describes current public policy concerning addiction in the United States, with proposals for reform which, it is believed, would substantially reduce the evils now associated with addiction and the large illicit traffic in drugs. Applied to the study of narcotics addiction, each of these orientations has its own characteristic goals, methodological assumptions, and analytical procedures, and neither can be judged by the standards of the other. The theory that is developed is a general one; its applicability is not limited to American addicts, to lower-class users, to twentieth-century addiction, to any restricted segment of the problem, or to any specific historical period.
