ABSTRACT
The first kind of disease, exemplified by Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, is discovered by doctors; the second kind, exemplified by drug abuse, is mandated by legislators and decreed by judges. Similarly, the first kind of treatment, exemplified by the surgical removal of a gall bladder, is advised by doctors and authorized by competent patients; the second kind, exemplified by participation in a court-ordered drug treatment program, is imposed by judges on defendants accused or convicted of violating drug laws. Moreover, not only does coercion do moral violence to the concept of treatment, but the entire drug abuse treatment enterprise rests on a pharmacologically phony foundation. The medical profession's present support of the War on Drugs is thus just one more episode in its long history of participation in religious, national, and political conflicts. To be sure, persons drafted as convicts, conscripts, and "chemically dependent persons" all receive certain services, such as food, shelter, clothing, and antidrug propaganda.
