Various studies and surveys suggest that people in many societies are significantly more likely to have negative attitudes towards those dealing with drug addiction. In addition, people generally do not support government policies that aim to help those dependent on drugs and who are struggling with their addiction.

A web-based national survey in England, for example, compared attitudes about stigma, discrimination, treatment effectiveness, and support for drug addiction and mental illness. The study data showed that a majority of people held significantly more negative views towards people with drug addictions.

Respondents were overwhelmingly un-willing to have a person with drug addiction marry into their family or work closely with them. Furthermore, they were more willing to accept discriminatory practices against people with a drug addiction, were more sceptical about the effectiveness of treatment, and more likely to oppose policies aimed at helping addicts.

Colleen L. Barry, an associate professor at the School of Public Health, claims that: “While drug addiction and mental illness are both chronic, treatable health conditions, the public is more likely to think of addiction as a moral failing rather than a medical condition. In recent years, it has become more socially acceptable to talk publicly about one’s struggles with mental illness. But with addiction, the feeling is that the addict is a bad or weak person, especially because it concerns the use of illegal substances.”

The problem concerning drug abuse is that it is also often symptomatic of mental illness. People addicted to drugs are roughly twice as likely to suffer from mood and anxiety disorders as the general population.

Past research shows that addiction, whether it is to drugs or alcohol, significantly changes a person’s brain, resulting in compulsive behaviours that weaken a person’s self-control. Recovering addicts can and do successfully overcome addiction with total abstinence and effort.

People addicted to drugs are roughly twice as likely to suffer from mood and anxiety disorders

Expanded public education to change our negative opinions and attitudes about addicts is a first step. It is important to know, understand and accept that addiction affects people of all ages and socio-economic groups. Recognition of this growing problem may help more addicts get the support and treatment they need to start the path to recovery.

Maltese society is none too keen on discussing the topic either. In my opinion, our society still reflects a good number of people that regard drug addicts as dangerous, unpredictable and having only themselves to blame for their predicament. And it is this latter aspect that seems to be the key to the stigma associated with drug addicts.

Many people have little sympathy for them because they took illegal substances in the first place.

People believe that if drug users really wanted to, they could just simply stop taking drugs. Such attitudes betray a lack of understanding of the nature of addiction.

There is something profound about the process of stigmatisation that makes even the most hard-bitten addict vulnerable to its sting. Drug addicts are stigmatised in a variety of different situations – but particularly where they can be publicly exposed as users.

This can occur in the local pharmacy, where users pick up their clean needles or at the detox centre where they go for their liquid methadone dose.

It can happen when users go through the door of the drug rehabilitation centre or when they tell their friends and relatives what they are going through.

Many users I know can describe clearly their own personal experiences of how they are looked down on as “the scum of the earth” and how they try to hide their addiction at all costs, often to the extent of avoiding treatment.

So, what can be done about the drug addict stigma?

Above all, there needs to be a bold attempt to inform the public about the nature of addiction.

Medical research now has an increasingly clearer idea of how genetic and early childhood influences lie at the heart of the development of addiction and how the neurochemistry of the brain puts users into a continuous struggle to decide to stop using drugs.

A better understanding of the nature of addiction should make it harder to simply blame the “addict” for his or her predicament.

Efforts to use the media to help create a greater awareness about addiction and the ongoing recovery process of the addict, perhaps could be an area led by ex-users themselves. This could help society move away from an environment of condemnation and defamation of the addict towards greater compassion for this stigmatised group which we must admit is a growing reality in our Maltese society.

Clifford Galea is the administrative curator of Casino Notabile, Mdina.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece