Harry Potter is as addictive as drugs

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London (ANI): The magic spell cast by Harry Potter on its young as well as old fans is similar to the addiction that drugs or cigarettes inflict on people, according to a leading psychologist. Jeffrey Rudski has claimed that many of the boy wizard's readers are suffering from withdrawal in just the way that drug addicts do.

After studying 4,000 Potter fans, Rudski concluded that one in 10 of the boy wizard's fans were suffering withdrawal symptoms, such as depression and loss of appetite, after JK Rowling's final tale, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, was published. A further 20 per cent admitted being on the verge of addiction to Rowling's creation.

He also found that some of the fans polled had been spending as much as four hours a day on Potter activities. "I feel like someone close to me has died," the Mirror quoted one fan, as saying. "Addiction to a drug is no different to an addiction to Harry Potter," said Rudski. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book, was published last summer.