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This article focuses on the harmful effects of addiction. At present every male child is born with at least a 10% probability of significantly damaging himself with drink at some time in his life. More than 1,00,000 people are dying each year due to alcoholism. By the year 2030, across the world, about 10 million people are expected to die as a result of tobacco-related disease. There was virtually no illicit drug problem in Great Britain about 40 years ago but now there are more than 1,00,000 drug injectors and over 1000 drug-related deaths each year. In the best areas with a favorable soil of social deprivation, up to 10% of young men have tried heroin. Heroin addicts have 14 times the death expectation of matched controls. Among intravenous injectors there is a 30-60% hepatitis C positivity. To have used one or more illicit drugs by the age of 25 years has become the norm today. Health has its enemies, and building it will always involve a fight against forces of darkness and is never a carnival of science. Drugs pose a pervasive threat to the world's well-being.