Dalrymple and Drugs: May 2006 Speech – Romancing Opiates

In April 2006, Roger Kimball’s Encounter Books published Theodore Dalrymple’s Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy, and one month later the Manhattan Institute hosted Dalrymple at the Harvard Club to mark the release of the book. In his speech at the event, Dalrymple highlighted the book’s major arguments and described the popular view of opiate addiction as an “emblematic example of how error may become ingrained and how the most obvious facts may be ignored and their significance overlooked entirely”.

We’ve posted the speech in six parts on the SkepticalDoctor channel on YouTube. Don’t miss the last part in which Dalrymple fields a question from Ethan Nadelmann, the founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, which describes itself as “the leading organization in the United States promoting alternatives to the war on drugs.” Dalrymple had criticized Nadelmann’s views nine years earlier in his City Journal essay Don’t Legalize Drugs, and apparently Nadelmann came loaded for bear.


13 thoughts on “Dalrymple and Drugs: May 2006 Speech – Romancing Opiates

  1. Dr Fox

    I like this post on the Skeptical doctor. Theodore Dalrymple’s views are always interesting to hear. He always have strong views, and his ideas are revolutionary. Thanks for the video!

    Reply

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