Understanding Addiction Part Four: Accommodate, Don’t Subjugate

Part Four of the Understanding Addiction series hosted by psychologist and neuroscientist Marc Lewis, and drug, policy, and intervention researcher and activist Shaun Shelly. 

In the final salon in the series, Shaun and Marc will discuss how current policies and treatment approaches oppress individuals and groups and increase the risk of harm, disease, and even death — and what we should be doing instead.

Some people just do better on drugs, and society needs to get over that fact. Our current approaches increase risk and often contribute to the development of drug consumption habits by isolating and stigmatizing these individuals. The conceptualisation of drug use as a criminal act and/or as a pathology creates rancour, conflict, and alienation between people considered addicts and the rest of society.

How does the wrong understanding of drug use impact people on a population level? What current policies create systemic injustices? How do we apply what we know about resolving addiction in individuals to the broader community? What about harm reduction? How do we accommodate people who do better on drugs? Should we accommodate them at all? How do we make our communities safer more welcoming environments for everyone?

Online Resources:

• Lewis, M. Why the disease model of addiction does far more harm than good. Scientific American, 9 February, 2018
• Stuart McMillen explains Rat Park in a cartoon

Suggested Reading:

• Hartogsohn, I. (2017). Constructing drug effects: A history of set and setting. Drug Science, Policy and Law, 3, 20, 5032451-6683325. .https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2050324516683325
• Alexander BK. The globalization of addiction: a study in the poverty of spirit. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2008.
• https://filtermag.org/decolonize-drugs-prohibition-panel/
• https://www.groundup.org.za/article/drugs-are-not-problem-way-we-think-about-them/
• Wiens TK, Walker LJ. The chronic disease concept of addiction: helpful or harmful? Addict Res Theory 2015; 23: 309-21.
• Lopez-Quintero C, Hasin DS, de Los Cobos JP, et al. Probability and predictors of remission from life-time nicotine, alcohol, cannabis or cocaine dependence: results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Addiction 2011; 106: 657-69.
• Bonnie RJ. Responsibility for addiction. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 2002; 30: 405-13.

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