ADDICTION 'A MEDICAL DISEASE'

Drug addiction is a medical disease that deserves to be funded and treated
as well as any other illness, says an American pharmacologist.

The head of the Addiction Science Research and Education Centre at Texas
University's College of Pharmacology, Carlton Erickson, is in New Zealand
this week at the invitation of the Queen Mary Centre.

While here he will meet Health Minister Annette King and give a series of
lectures on new pharmacological treatments for drug addiction.

Dr Erickson said it was important to reduce the stigma of addiction as it
had a negative impact on public attitudes and adversely affected both the
level and quality of patient care, and undermined funding for prevention,
education, and research.

New research on the neuro-biology of addiction had important implications
for prevention and education about the true causes of drug problems and how
society should deal with them.

"Until now the field of drug addiction, treatment, and prevention has
drifted aimlessly, based upon the lack of sufficient research evidence that
addictions are diseases, and about the pharmacology of addicting drugs," Dr
Erickson said.

"Much of the confusion is based upon an incomplete understanding of the
differences between intentional drug abuse and addictive drug disease." Dr
Erickson said there was also "a great deal of misinformation" about the
pharmacology of addicting drugs.