PMCH: Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention
Comments by Alan Leshner, Administrator, NIDA

Why do people abuse drugs?

• "Because take drugs because they make them feel good! Leshner(1996)
• "Because take drugs because they make them feel good, but they also..."make you act like a jerk!" General Barry McCaffrey(1996)
• "A major reason people take a drug is they like what it does to their brains!".

Addiction

• Prolonged drug use changes the brain in fundamental and long lasting ways.
• Drug addiction is not just a lot of drug use.
• Addiction is, fundamentally, a brain disease.
• Addiction is not JUST a brain disease.
• Addiction is a brain disease with imbedded behavioral and social context aspects.
• Addiction is a condition of changed brains and trained brains.

  Treatment

• A major task for drug treatment is changing brains back.
• Addiction is the quintessential biobehavioral disorder.
• The most effective treatments will attend to all aspects of addiction:
  • biological
  • behavioral
  • environmental/social

  Public Health Perspective

• Having a public health perspective influences (obviously)
  • Prevention strategies
  • Treatment strategies
  • Treatment outcome expectations
• BUT IT ALSO INFLUENCES...
  • Criminal Justice approaches
  • Drug use pattern expectations

Comments by Alan Leshner, Administrator of NIDA, 1996.
From a presentation to Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA)

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