Everything You Know About Addiction Is Wrong (TED TALK)

“The first thing that alerted me to the fact that there’s something not right with this story was the fact that, if I step out of this TED talk today and get hit by a car and I break my hip, I’ll be taken to the hospital and be given loads of diamorphin.  Diamorphin is heroin. It is medically pure, better than the stuff you get on the streets. You’ll be given it for quite a long period of time, there are loads of people in this room who may not realize that you’ve taken quite a lot of herion, and if what we believe about addiction is right, those people are exposed to all of those chemical hooks, what should happen? They should become addicts. This has been studied very carefully, it doesn’t happen. You would have noticed if your grandmother had a hip replacement, she didn’t come out as a junkie. When I learned this, it was just so contrary to everything I’ve been taught, to everything I thought I knew.”