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Chronic Intermittent Ethanol Vapor Exposure Paired with Two-Bottle Choice to Model Alcohol Use Disorder
Published on: June 23, 2023
Addiction: lifestyle choice or medical diagnosis?
1Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology, Division of Brain Sciences, Department of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College,, London, UK. d.nutt@imperial.ac.uk
Abstract:
The concept of addiction is under threat from the current UK government's attempt to define it as a lifestyle choice rather than an illness. This overturns the previous government's rational policy on drug treatment and is both dishonest and damaging. It is dishonest because addiction fulfils all the criteria for an illness. It is damaging because proven treatments for many addictions exist and the failure to optimize these means that more patients will die, get blood-borne viruses, and encourage others into drug use. In this paper, I detail these issues and suggest ways to avoid irreparable damage to the current care provisions that are proving effective.
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