This is a most comprehensive study on the nature of addiction, its epidemic spread (in America now, but in other countries over past decades), and the measures taken to control the epidemic in various countries. The author proposes that we see drug addicts as contagious patients and deal with them by giving society the right it asserts with microbe infectious patients: to isolate them while they undergo treatment. For the large number of incurable cases of addiction, Bejerot recommends a combination of freely dispensed drugs and isolation from society on some pleasant '"drug island" where they are allowed to live in peace with their addiction … with their nearest and dearest'. He terms addiction an artificially produced instinct of tremendous force, which the patient is prepared to safeguard as a healthy person safeguards his sexual drives. From this and other observations come explanations of the relative failure of psychotherapeutic treatment; it is imperative that we adopt the other measures suggested above to protect society from the carnage this epidemic leaves in its wake.