ArticleNeuroethics2017
Q: Is Addiction a Brain Disease or a Moral Failing? A: Neither.
Article in Neuroethics, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 94 citations in OpenAlex.
- Examining the relationship between public stigma, models of addiction, and addictive disorders.Addiction research & theory · 2025Article
- An Exploratory Study of Overlapping Stigmas and Substance Use Stigma Among Women with Substance Use Histories Who are Incarcerated.Journal of drug issues · 2024Article
- Should we promote alcohol problems as a continuum? Implications for policy and practice.Drugs (Abingdon, England) · 2024Article
- Alcohol use disorder conceptualizations and diagnoses reflect their sociopolitical context.Addiction research & theory · 2023Article
- Self-interpellation in narratives about craving: Multiple and unitary selves.Sociology of health & illness · 2022Article
- Alcohol use disorder and disability insurance in Switzerland: the attitudes and views of lawyers, insurance medical experts, and addiction-specialist therapists.Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy · 2022Article
- Treating equivalent cases differently: A comparative analysis of substance use disorder and type 2 diabetes in Norwegian treatment guidelines.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2022Article
- From concepts to treatment: a dialog between a preclinical researcher and a clinician in addiction medicine.Translational psychiatry · 2022Review
- Addiction as a brain disease revised: why it still matters, and the need for consilience.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2021Review
- Editorial: Brain and Cognition for Addiction Medicine: From Prevention to Recovery.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020Article
- Nicotine addiction as a moral problem: Barriers to e-cigarette use for smoking cessation in two working-class areas in Northern England.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2019Article
- Conceptualizations of Addiction and Moral Responsibility.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Article
- Debating Medical Utility, Not Futility: Ethical Dilemmas in Treating Critically Ill People Who Use Injection Drugs.The Journal of law, medicine & ethics : a journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics · 2018Article
- Introduction: Testing and Refining Marc Lewis's Critique of the Brain Disease Model of Addiction.Neuroethics · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This article uses Marc Lewis' work as a springboard to discuss the socio-political context of the brain disease model of addiction (BDMA). The claim that promotion of the BDMA is the only way the general public can be persuaded to withhold blame and punishment from addicts is critically examined. After a discussion of public understandings of the disease concept of addiction, it is pointed out that it is possible to develop a scientific account of addiction which is neither a disease nor a moral model but which the public could understand. Evidence is reviewed to suggest that public acceptance of the disease concept is largely lip-service and that the claim the BDMA removes stigma among the public and professionals is unsupported by evidence. Further, there is good evidence that biogenetic explanations of mental/behavioural disorders in general have been counterproductive in the attempt to ally stigma. A model of addiction as a disorder of choice may attract special problems in public-facing communications and risks being misunderstood. However, ways of presenting this model to the public are suggested that may avoid such risks. Lastly, the claim that the BDMA is the only way of ensuring access to treatment and of maintaining research funding for addiction is disputed and a way in which these benefits can be retained under a disorder-of-choice model proposed. The article concludes by enthusiastically endorsing Lewis' call for a third stage in the governing image of addiction.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.