Words like junkie, addict stigmatize drug users: doctor
Posted January 28, 2017 7:33 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER – As the understanding increases about drug addiction, terms like junkie and addict are being increasingly shunned by those who use illicit drugs and consider such terms stigmatizing.
Doctor Scott MacDonald of the Crosstown Clinic in Vancouver where people are given heroin as a treatment option says the manual of mental disorders no longer lists the term addict, or what he calls “the A word.”
He says people who chronically use illicit drugs are now considered to have a substance-use disorder, not an addiction, which is loaded with stigma.
Jordan Westfall of the Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs says he refers to himself as a person who formerly used opioid drugs.
Westfall says calling someone a junkie or an addict suggests the person’s entire life is reduced to that one behaviour, which he says is dehumanizing.
He says he was a university student using drugs such as OxyContin, fentanyl and heroin, but quit to pursue his goal of getting a master’s degree in public policy so he could advocate for reform for others.
