treatment

The understanding of addiction is continuously developing and has been completely rethought by the medical community as having implementations as a medical disease rather then psychological. Major contributors to this paradigm shift stem from research through high-resonance imaging that showed drug addiction causes physical changes to the brain. Heredity links and neurological chemical balances have also been correlated with higher chance of addiction. Understanding addiction’s science contributes to the treatment of it beyond the medical world, to the social and political world.

Drug Courts are a novelty in the criminal justice field. Since the first pilot programs started in early 1980s in the United States, more and more countries worldwide begin to observe advantages of this solution and try to implement the project. Drug courts’ purpose is to limit the use of alcohol and other drugs as well as diminish the criminal activity associated with their use. In the United Kingdom the first pilot projects of this kind took off in early 2000s in Glasgow, Fife, Leeds and London. Why do governments decide to follow this path?

The United Kingdom has one of the highest levels of drug use in the European Union, and this has largely remained unchanged for close to 40 years, with cannabis being the most prevalent drug used in the country. During the 70s and 80s the nation faced an acute heroin addiction problem, and with it a wave of petty crimes by drug users looking for cash to pay for their addiction.

Cheryl White, a long term drug user and harm reduction activist, recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder, talks about the intersection of drug use and mental illness. After being diagnosed she became aware that she had been using drugs to self medicate since a young age. The diagnosis has helped her manage her drug use as a conscious response to her condition, in contrast to more chaotic patterns of previous use. The preconceptions of many medical professionals often means that drug use is seen as the cause of patients' problems rather than a symptom.