The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) recently held the 57th meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), which brings together the leading minds in addiction and drug research across the world to discuss the best methods for addressing these problems on a global scale.
Dr. Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), attended the conference and recently reported on her blog at the NIDA's website that the CND called for world governments to treat addiction as an illness rather than as a criminal act.
"No one would imagine that enforcing tough legal sanctions on people with a chronic condition such as heart disease could help address that illness or its causes, or help prevent it in others," Dr. Volkow states. "Addiction is a medical issue, and the member countries of the United Nations will make progress in addressing it when it becomes the full responsibility of their healthcare systems."
The CND recommended that political leaders shift away from creating policies that punish drug users with jail time, and instead focus on providing these individuals with access to drug and alcohol treatment centers. Doing so, they say, will be more effective in reducing the frequency of addiction in the world and undermining the illicit drug market.
Dr. Volkow hits on a point that is very important to the staff of Fairwinds Treatment Center: Addiction is an illness, and it can only be confronted successfully through effective treatment. That's why Dr. M.K. (Khal) El-Yousef developed the dual-diagnosis approach to addiction that we employ at Fairwinds. We try to uncover the underlying psychological causes of a patient's addictive behaviors, which can help them overcome this illness permanently and achieve better results than other recovery programs. For more information, contact us today by clicking here.
