How Treating Addiction as a Disability Could Completely Transform Treatment

IF ONLY –

Feb. 1, 2023 – But unfortunately, following a phenomenon that’s been replicated throughout the country, SSPs have been subject to constant legal threats. In 2019, the major cities of Orange County successfully sued to block a mobile SSP funded by the state, citing the litter of used syringes as a primary concern. The last needle exchange in Orange County was shut down in early 2022 after its permit was revoked on the grounds of a zoning violation. As a result, in Orange County there is currently not a single SSP. Cases like these constitute a crisis in addiction treatment, and they demand a new approach to defending the rights of addicted people. A number of scholars, attorneys, and activists have proposed responding to this crisis with an idea already established in American law: that addiction is a disability.

Drug addiction is ubiquitous—in 2021, 24 million people met the criteria for a drug use disorder—yet it is also deeply stigmatized. A 2014 article by researchers from Johns Hopkins found that 54 percent of people believe landlords should be allowed to deny housing to people with drug addiction, while 64 percent believe employers should be allowed to deny employment and 90 percent would be unwilling to have a member of that group marry into their family.

These attitudes are a barrier to interventions that assist people with drug addictions, especially “harm reduction” measures, which aim to limit the harms associated with drug use. Consider again syringe services programs like the ones shuttered in Orange County: The CDC estimates that they reduce the incidence of HIV and hepatitis C by 50 percent, in addition to promoting overdose prevention through education and distribution of naloxone, an overdose reversal medication.