Gov. Peter Shumlin appeared on ABC’s This Week on Sunday to discuss opiate addiction and his continued emphasis that the addiction is a disease to be treated by a health care system, not just cops and courts.
Joined by Seth Mnookin, a journalist and recovering addict, Shumlin gave himself and Vermont at large a pat on the back.
“I think the difference [between Vermont and other states struggling with drug problems] is we’ve got a governor and law enforcement and community that’s willing to address it,” Shumlin told host Martha Raddatz. “And really the question for us is not so much why it’s happening but how do we deal with what’s happening, and the challenge with this disease – and it is a disease – is that nobody wants to talk about it.”
Mnookin, a recovering heroin addict who now teaches science writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, compared addiction to other life-long diseases.
“If someone has diabetes or if someone has high blood pressure, no one would be surprised that that acts up on them later in life, because those are chronic diseases and people have relapses,” he said. “Drug addiction and alcoholism is something that you need to keep constant watch on to make sure that you can stay in recovery.”
The governor closed the segment emphasizing an approach that treats addiction as a health issue, not a crime issue.
“If folks smoke cigarettes, they get cancer, we feel compassion,” he said. “This is no different.”
