Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions

by Michael Moss

On the other hand, one in five beds was occupied by a banker, lawyer, minister, or other white-collar professional, and some of the patients were themselves doctors or nurses, having dipped into their own medical bags. They were drawn to heroin notwithstanding the risks that using the drug illegally posed to their career and family life. Regardless of their background, most didn’t start using drugs for fun. They tended to have some sort of problem or pain, physical or emotional, that the drug was meant to resolve. Moreover, the initial source of that drug often wasn’t a dope dealer sitting on a park bench, but a doctor prescribing medication. Glaser came to see his own profession as a root cause of the heroin epidemic—a view with just as much currency today.