Some people remain unconvinced. For them, addiction is a moral failing. Users want to get high, pure and simple. No one forces them to. “I’m not disputing the fact that certain areas of the brain light up when an addict thinks about or uses cocaine,” said Sally Satel, staff psychiatrist at the Oasis Drug Treatment Clinic in Washington, D.C., and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “But it conveys the message that addiction is as biological a condition as multiple sclerosis. True brain diseases have no volitional component.”
