Drug Addiction IS a Mental Illness
This is something we ran across put out by the National Drug Abuse Institute we believe to be of immense significance to individuals, family members, law enforcement, and policy makers:
To help explain this comorbidity [between drug addiction and “mental illness], we need to first recognize that drug addiction is a mental illness.
It is a complex brain disease characterized by compulsive, at times uncontrollable drug craving, seeking, and use despite devastating consequences—behaviors that stem from drug-induced changes in brain structure and function.
These changes occur in some of the same brain areas that are disrupted in other mental disorders, such as depression, anxiety, or schizophrenia.
It is therefore not surprising that population surveys show a high rate of co-occurrence, or comorbidity, between drug addiction and other mental illnesses.
While we cannot always prove a connection or causality, we do know that certain mental disorders are established risk factors for subsequent drug abuse—and vice versa.
---“Co-Morbidity: Addiction and Other Mental Illnesses,"
National Institute on Drug Abuse (emphasis added)
https://www.drugabuse.gov/sites/default/files/rrcomorbidity.pdf