Increasing support for alternatives to incarceration for drug use: is the brain disease model of addiction effective?

Abstract

The National Institute of Drug Addiction has promoted the Brain Disease Model of Addiction (BDMA) for several decades, believing it will have a positive impact on drug-related social policies. Per research, neither understanding nor accepting the BDMA positively influences social behavior and decision making related to decreased stigma or increased support for treatment and funding for substance use disorders. An alternative model, the Malleability Model, focuses on the changeability of psychopathology associated with psychiatric disorders, and is associated with decreased hopelessness and increased prognostic optimism. The Moral Weakness Model focuses on moral character as the reason for addiction and is associated with punitive responses to use disorders. The current study sought to identify whether Malleability values were more predictive of willingness to vote for harm reduction (HR) policies than BDMA and Moral values (H1); and if agreement with Malleability values were more predictive of willingness to fund such policies than agreement with BDMA and Moral values (H2). Contrary to hypotheses, results indicated the Malleability Model failed to predict votes and donations, while agreement with the Moral Weakness Model and conservative political affiliation was predictive of lower HR donations. Agreement with the BDMA did not reliably predict votes and donations to policies; the associations reflected were tenuous and should be interpreted with caution. Overall, results indicated the Malleability Model did not increase votes and donations to HR policies, while agreement with Moral Weakness Model and conservative affiliation consistently predicted votes and donations.

Keywords:

• Brain disease model
• malleability
• harm reduction
• policy
• voting
• donating

Ethical statement

This research was approved by the Sam Houston State University IRB (IRB-2019-109). All participants provided informed consent prior to participation in the study and were permitted to skip any questions and discontinue participation at any time. Compensation for participation was not impacted by the quality of participation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the APA Division 50 – Society of Addiction Psychology under a Student Grant Award.