Addicts are scorned by communities and celebrities with addictions are exploited or hounded by paparazzi.

Addicts are scorned by communities and celebrities with addictions are exploited or hounded by paparazzi. And while the government purports to view addiction as a disease, it often works in opposition to that position through the “War on Drugs,” which counts most drug users as criminals. Even those of us in the treatment community still—consciously or unconsciously—employ stigmatizing programming and language—such as when we focus on “dirty” urine.
So despite widespread agreement that addiction is best understood as a complicated behavioral-biological scenario that requires treatment, the system is hard-wired to prolong stigmatization, and stigma contributes to addiction's lethality.

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