Dismantling structural addiction stigma in law: Policies for systematic change.

Abstract

Stigma is an under-recognized health malady that is both rampant for vulnerable communities and difficult to measure for researchers. Stigma has enormous and compounding negative health impacts, associated with lower education levels, employment and income, and poorer control of chronic conditions and illness. When stigma is embedded in the systems that govern daily life, it is considered structural stigma. Structural stigma in law has a particularly potent impact on the health and recovery of patients with substance use disorder (SUD) and addiction. Stigmatizing laws against individuals with addiction have a powerful role in downstream health, including opportunities for employment, access to health insurance, self-stereotyping, and reduced willingness to access recovery resources. Understanding and dismantling structural stigma in law, therefore, is a necessary component in comprehensively addressing SUD and addiction in collaboration with other evidence-based interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).