This week's programme in the series on Man and Science Today.
'Today we gaol the alcoholic as a criminal - this is as stupid as punishing a man for having TB' says a research psychiatrist in this edition of Horizon.
This programme exposes the ignorance of well-known scientific facts that underlies the failure of British medical and legal authorities to treat effectively Britain's leading addictive disease - alcoholism. There, are probably 500,000 alcoholics in Britain. Of those who receive medical treatment today, half will be dead in 10 years time.
The suicide rate for alcoholics is 70 times higher than average. Probably half of the places in our short-term prisons are occupied by people with drinking problems. But courts usually fly in the face of scientific facts when they fine and gaol the alcohol addict.
Research shows that anyone who drinks regularly and heavily risks chemical addiction to alcohol. At this stage no amount of will-power will terminate a physical addiction which can be as devastating in its effects as physical dependence on morphine or heroin.

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