Should Addiction to Drugs be Labeled as Brain Disease?

Academic Paper from the year 2019 in the subject Biology - Diseases, Health, Nutrition, grade: 100.00%, , course: Public Health and Policy, language: English, abstract: There has been debate on whether or not addiction to drugs should be considered a brain disease. The idea of addiction as a disease first came about in 1987, 31 years after alcoholism was labeled a disease by the American Medical Association in 1956 (n.d.c). In Unit 3 of Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Health and Society, Leshner and Slate (2018) both provide opposing arguments on the subject. Leshner is arguing that addiction is a brain disease while Slater argues that it is not a brain disease.