Addicts are negligent and neglectful derelicts who are to be castigated and marginalized in society. It’s their fault that they have become addicted. They deserve a sordid existence.
This is the philosophy of some people who do not believe addiction is a disease. Proponents of the “War on Drugs” of the ‘80s and ‘90s subscribe to this theory. They say they are waging a “War on Drugs,” but what they’re really doing is waging a war on people.
Philip Seymour Hoffman wasn’t a derelict. He had a disease. So did Kurt Cobain. He had two diseases.
Hillary Clinton didn’t quite go there Sunday night, but Bernie Sanders did. Sanders decidedly declared addiction as a disease when the Democratic candidates for president squared off in South Carolina. Clinton stopped short of using the word “disease” but recognized the severity of the heroin epidemic.
“Everywhere I go to campaign, I’m meeting families who are affected by the drug problem that mostly is opioids and heroin now, and lives are being lost and children are being orphaned,” Clinton said. “We have to move away from treating the use of drugs as a crime and instead, move it to where it belongs, as a health issue. And we need to divert more people from the criminal justice system into drug courts, into treatment, and recovery.”
There were 47,055 lethal drug overdoses in 2014, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
About 435,000 people aged 12 or older were addicted to heroin in 2014, says the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
The same year, .3 percent of people aged 12 or older — or 914,000 Americans — used heroin at least once, also according to SAMHSA. In 2002, this rate was at .1 percent.
Needless to say, the epidemic is jaw dropping.
I’ve snorted heroin a few times before. I wanted to shoot it, but I’m afraid of needles. And living in downtown Chicago, it was easier for me to score heroin and crack than it was to find marijuana. Thank god I never got addicted. However, I never came across prescription opioids.
Because prescription painkillers like Oxycontin are increasingly difficult to procure, people are turning to heroin – which is far more dangerous in terms of likelihood of overdose.
At Sunday’s debate, Sanders pointed some blame toward the pharmaceutical industry for the opioid epidemic.
“We need a revolution in this country in terms of mental health treatment,” Sanders said. “People should be able to get the treatment that they need when they need it… When we talk about addiction being a disease, the Secretary is right… There is a responsibility on the part of the pharmaceutical industry and the drug companies who are producing all of these drugs and not looking at the consequence of it.”
On the Republican side, Governor Chris Christie made news when he came out as a supporter of the disease model of addiction.
“I’m pro life,” Christie said back in November. “And I think that if you’re pro life, that means you gotta be pro life for the whole life. Not just the nine months you’re in the womb. The 16-year-old teenage girl on the floor of the county lockup addicted to heroin, I’m pro life for her too. Her life is just as much a precious gift from God. And we need to start thinking that way as a party and as a people.”
At Sunday’s debate, Clinton identified the need for police officers and firefighters to administer Narcan, an antidote to heroin or opioid overdose. And she pledged that as president, she would work with states to put more money — about a billion dollars — into helping to end this epidemic.
Addicts need help, not criminal discipline. They need hugs not drugs. This is something that our presidential candidates are realizing. And it’s an evolution that is welcomed by the mental health community.
