Treating addiction as a chronic disease...

... or how can something that makes so much sense be so impossible to achieve?

It’s been ten years since a special communication in the Journal of the American Medical Association by four leading experts declared that drug dependence (including alcohol) should be treated as a chronic medical problem, not a social problem. This was not a brand new idea, but seeing it in JAMA was like the golden seal of approval. Or it should have been.

Ten years later, are we closer to that goal? There’s been a lot more thinking about how we should integrate treatment of substance use disorders into primary care and public health systems. A few places are doing it, including some pilot projects. But when it comes to health system-wide, daily clinical level — that remains abysmal.

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