This book was written by a doctor in Canada who cares for addicted, homeless people in Vancouver. He explains addiction as he understands it (it's causes and the ways it changes the brain), he explains why the war on drugs has been a complete failure, and believes we treat addicted people horribly.. less than human. He suggests kinder, more humane approaches to the addicted as they affect all of us.
He also makes a broader point about our society (western Europe, Canada & the US): we have sky-rocketing rates of all manner of addictions (drugs, alcohol, gambling, spending, work), depression and anxiety so perhaps we should look a little more closely at our values. The way we treat the most vulnerable is founded in the (at this point, very bad) idea that each person is responsible only for himself. If you make mistakes, they are your own and you should pay for them. If you cannot survive within the capitalist structure that values people only for what they can produce, then you have no value. And then worse, you deserve what you get.
I don't think most of the liberal people I know think this consciously. However, the way people raise their children now exposes the rot described above. Hyper-competitive parents cultivate their products ( I mean kids ) into production machines. They do not care about other people's children. We are lost.
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