Fighting America's addiction to drugs
Monday, April 27th, 2009
By: Maiken Scott
mscott@whyy.org
President Obama has chosen an addiction specialist for his #2 Drug Czar – an unusual move in terms of fighting the war on drugs. Thomas McLellan, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist, will be in charge of cutting down demand for drugs.
Psychologist Dan Gottlieb discusses the appointment and new research on a different approach to treating addiction:
Listen:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
addiction was made a crime in 1914 with the harrison act. this act single handedly took the treatment of addiction away from physicians and placed in in the hands of law enforcement. after almost 100 years of failure one would think we could rethink the strategy and put the medical model in place for addiction. specifically looking at heroin addiction, we have had a very good medical treatment for this in the way of methadone. however, the restrictions, regulations, and improper use has contributed to a reputation for methadone that handcuffs its use. we now have suboxone. mistakes with the use of this medication are being made, however, with work i hope the medical field makes more forward strides than backward ones.
The "war on drugs" has been an utter failure and has resulted in 20 million Americans being arrested since 1965. So, fighting the "war on drugs" really seems to mean ending it, and taking a new approach.
But, how do you expect to "cut down demand" on, for instance, marijuana, which is the #1 cash crop in California and #7 in Pennsylvania, and is a $14 billion industry in the U.S.? Why not take the grown-up approach of legalizing and taxing marijuana, or at least decriminalizing the plant and making medical pot much more available to people who need it? Hopefully that is what President Obama has in mind.
Thank you.
Jim.