Drug workers in the United Kingdom are tending to view heroin users who come for treatment as "normal" except for the problems they encounter due to misguided public attitudes and responses toward them, to the "war on drugs," to prohibitionist fetishes, and to oppressive legislation. The assumption is that if these external burdens were removed from the lives of heroin users, their psychological functioning and social adjustment would parallel that of nonusers. This stereotype of the "normal" drug user may provide a convenient philosophy for simplifying the treatment of heroin users, but it fails to appreciate differences among drug users. As more people use heroin, there will be a growing number who turn to heroin as a way of coping with psychological and social problems. These problems will then be aggravated, and new ones will emerge because of drug use. Such persons may be reasonably expected to come for treatment. Far from being "normal," those who present for drug treatment are likely to be skewed towards the "abnormal" side of the spectrum of drug users.