Here's the interesting thing about the headline/title of the paper. It's intriguing to me, as I have been in the mental health system for 30 years now. The des

Here's the interesting thing about the headline/title of the paper. It's intriguing to me, as I have been in the mental health system for 30 years now. The description of "drug abuse" has morphed a few times, from "addiction" to "abuse" and of course, the framing of addiction as a Medical Disease that can be Treated Medically, and finally to this non-judgemental terminology of "substance use". Apparently, the psychiatric establishment has chosen to stop passing judgement on those who abuse illegal drugs, in favor of incorporating those drugs into the tapestry of treatments available. Just a few weeks ago, I attended a brief seminar on Sleep Hygiene, which was led by a physician. One of the other participants boasted about how good his sleep was after smoking a joint, and the physician, as the Medical Authority in the room, explictly condoned this drug abuse and said that whatever this person perceives to help must be good and alright. I used to be friends with a certain person who lived in Boston but moved to San Francisco. She suffers from several poorly-specified mental conditions, such as bipolar disorder and anxiety. She is absolutely open to treating these conditions with drugs (and not any other way such as CBT or other talk-based therapies.) But she is also an inveterate abuser of illegal/quasi-legal drugs, and often discusses her experiences with marijuana, gummies, Ecstasy, LSD, etc. She has hired a psychiatrist who does not accept insurance, so she pays out of pocket for visits, and this psychiatrist basically turns a blind-eye to the illegal drug use while also prescribing psychotropic meds, including scheduled ones like Xanax. So my opinion is that the aforementioned friend is simply a recreational drug seeker and enjoys the extra boost from legal prescription drugs in the same way as she enjoys the illegal ones. But mental (sorry, behavioral) health professionals are not allowed to judge this as "abuse" but must instead refer to "substance use" and incorporate usage patterns into treatment plans, as if this self-medicating is not detrimental to someone who already has issues when they are 100% clean.