The message emblazoned on a walkway window at the airport in Burlington, Vt., is a startling departure from the usual tourism posters and welcome banners: Addiction is not a choice. It's a disease that can happen to anyone.
For decades, medical science has classified addiction as a chronic brain disease, but the concept has always been something of a hard sell to a skeptical public.
Kirsten E. Smith, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, expresses concern: 'I don't think it helps to tell people they are chronically diseased and therefore incapable of change. Then what hope do we have?'
The recent scientific criticisms are driven by an ominous urgency: Despite addiction's longstanding classification as a disease, the deadly public health disaster has only worsened.
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