The Addiction Policy Forum and the Chris and Vicky Cornell Foundation have launched a nationwide campaign entitled “Stop the Stigma: Tackling the Stigma of Addiction through Education.” Following is an excerpt of their recent article on addiction.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) frame substance use disorder as a medical condition.

Yet many continue to ask whether addiction is a disease, so we asked the country’s top expert on addiction, Dr. Nora Volkow, the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“It’s actually been strange to me that people have a difficulty in understanding addiction as a disease, because a disease is basically described as damage to an organ or system that jeopardizes your wellbeing,” explains Dr. Volkow. “We now have clear cut evidence that certain circuits in the brain become dysfunctional when you are addicted to drugs.”

View a video on this topic, and more details here.