The rail line from London curves in a great arc northward across the River Mersey, then touches the opposite shore at the working-class suburb of Widnes before sweeping west again for Liverpool.  The two-story brick building on Chapel Street in Widnes seems an unlikely testing ground for the great issues of our time, but it was here, according to local officials, that the power and majesty of the United States was brought to bear on a small public health clinic that ran afoul of American drug war orthodoxy.

Dr. John Marks is an imposing Welchman with fire in his eye and unkind things to say about the Yanks. He traces his problem with the U.S. to a 60 Minutes broadcast that aired in 1992 a few days after Christmas.^[1]  The segment opened with CBS Reporter Ed Bradley holding up a vial of pure heroin and asking, “Can Britain teach us anything about dealing with drugs?  One thing seems certain, there is little or nothing we can teach them.  They tried our hard line methods back in the 70's