Yeah punish the dealers not the users (trying to make a drug metaphor here)

okay time to answer some generic questions now that i've played a bit more of this

I tried it out when it first came out and was turne doff by the bugs, and cheesy voice acting/dialogue (and bad performance problems).

Yeah, some 5,000 lines of dialog have been rewritten and revoiced in ALL languages.  speaking of which, you can mix and match languages and subtitles.  As far as performance go, my computer handled it back when it came out but the load times have been noticeably reduced (we're talking from 30 seconds to 3 seconds). 

(combat system, inventory, etc).

The combat has been tweaked so stances aren't completely useless based on the enemy you're fighting.  Also the inventory has been made much much much more user friendly and there's an separate bag for alchemy (those that played the original know how quickly the inventory got cluttered).

My understanding is that the potions or whatever that you take in the game are addictive and mind-altering or something so maybe he is a drug addict?  I have not and can not read the books but I believe that is a theme.  Am I correct?

Potions are "poisonous" but his stoic attitude is partly influenced by his amnesia as well as his job.  I don't know why, but CD Projekt translated Wiedzmun (the actual title) into WITCHER instead of the direct translation HEXER which makes 30x more sense given the fact that they're magic using monster hunters. 

I guess The Hexer sounds like a generic title or something because I've never heard of a "Witcher."

The Witcher is actually a pretty appealing sounding title, really. I'd be more inclined to check out a game called The Witcher before one called The Hexer.

Didn't play last night, but I'm going to try to spend some time with this game on the weekend. Last I left off, I had to go around the village and get approval from four people or something (including a head guard who seemed mentally challenged) in order to go fight The Beast, I think.