Responsibility for Addiction
Publisher
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
Date
2002
Taking as its starting point the characterization of addiction as a "brain disease" by the nation’s leadership in public health and biomedical science, this paper explores the implications of recent developments in neuroscience for the concept of responsibility. The terrain is divided into three parts: responsibility for becoming addicted; responsibility for behavior symptomatic of addiction; and responsibility for amelioration of addiction. In general, the paper defends the thesis that recent scientific developments have sharpened but not erased traditional understandings in the first two areas, while recent legal developments have exposed new and intriguing theories of responsibility for managing.
Citation
Richard J. Bonnie, Responsibility for Addiction, 30 Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 405–413 (2002).