In a news story about drug addiction,
Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of
family medicine, emphasizes that there is no cure for addiction. “We have treatment for this chronic illness that can keep it controlled, but our treatments are imperfect, and the disease can recur,” he says. “There is a distinction between labeling someone as a drug addict who relapses as opposed to recognizing them as a person afflicted by a disease,” he notes.