Do we really want to base our 21st-century policy on what the colonialist preferred at a certain time in history, not at all based on health or what the preferences of different cultures might be? That's just ridiculous. — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share Image
Punishment by definition isn't going to help. So what you need to do is to help people to change and recover is to help them find different areas of passion and help them find better ways of coping. Because about 50 percent of people with addiction have a preexisting mental illness, about two-thirds have had some type of severe trauma… — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share
There's traditionally been two different ways of seeing addiction. Either it's a sin and you're a horrible bad person and you are just choosing to be hedonist or it's a chronic progressive disease. And while I certainly believe addiction is a medical problem that should be dealt with by the health system, the way we've conceptualized addiction as a disease… — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share
The thing about our drug laws is that they're not based on science. — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share Image
Marijuana is not not harmful, but is the least harmful psychoactive substance that we have, with the possible exception of caffeine. — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share Image
There is a safe, nontoxic drug called naloxone that can instantly reverse opioid overdose and prevent most of these deaths. But the drug war… — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share Image
When President Nixon declared war on drugs on June 17, 1971, about 110 people per 100,000 in the population were incarcerated. Today, we have… — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share Image
Because of the war on drugs, pain patients are treated with skepticism and pain doctors live in fear of being prosecuted for overprescribing. The… — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share Image
I think our drug laws need to be made scientifically, as best as possible, recognizing that values will always be part of that. — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share Image
Addiction is when you fall in love with a drug instead of a child or a lover and the learning that takes part in… — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share Image
We should not be putting kids in cages and hoping that is going to fix their psychological problems of any type. — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share Image
I don't have kids, but I've often noticed when people first become parents they seem to completely forget their own adolescence and they start… — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share Image
In order for people to recover, we can't just say 'love is all we need.' — Maia Szalavitz Copy Share Image
