Addiction: lifestyle choice or medical diagnosis?

The concept of addiction is under threat from the current UK government's attempt to define it as a lifestyle choice rather than an illness. This overturns the previous government's rational policy on drug treatment and is both dishonest and damaging. It is dishonest because addiction fulfils all the criteria for an illness. It is damaging because proven treatments for many addictions exist and the failure to optimize these means that more patients will die, get blood‐borne viruses, and encourage others into drug use. In this paper, I detail these issues and suggest ways to avoid irreparable damage to the current care provisions that are proving effective.