Heroin inspires in people a unique feeling of fear and dread. Hundreds of newspaper columns are devoted to 'the crisis' and millions of pounds spent by the government in attempts to combat the problem. Why is heroin so powerfully significant, when other social evils - poverty, alcohol - cause misery and death on a far larger scale?

Narcomania deals with this mystery surrounding drug addiction. It looks at opium dens and the Chines; the literature - Coleridge, Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu; the 'drug fiend; psychoanalytic theory; the overwhelming importance of society's attitudes; Boy Georyge; today's heroin panic.

Narcomania looks back at history and attacks and assesses current thinking. It steers a way through the myths and morass, and the very real problems, of heroin and addiction.