Law professor serves on commission that issues national report on addiction medicine

A five-year study by the National Advisory Commission on Addiction Treatment, on which professor Myles V. Lynk served as a member, has been issued by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

The report, “Addiction Medicine: Closing the Gap between Science and Practice,” reveals that addiction treatment is neglected by the medical system in the United States. It further indicates that, of the 16 percent of Americans who have the disease of addiction, 90 percent of them receive no form of treatment.

According to the study, released on June 26, 40 million Americans ages 12 and older have addictions involving nicotine, alcohol or other drugs, which makes addiction disease more prevalent among Americans than heart conditions, diabetes or cancer. Addiction and the risky use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs constitute the largest preventable and most costly health problems facing the United States today, according to the report.

It offers a set of recommendations to overhaul current intervention and treatment approaches and to bring practice in line with the scientific evidence and with the standard of care for other public health and medical conditions.

To read the report, click here.

Lynk is the Peter Kiewit Foundation Professor of Law and the Legal Profession and a Faculty Fellow in the Public Health Law and Policy Program of the College of Law’s Center for Law, Science & Innovation. He also is an Affiliated Faculty in Justice and Social Inquiry in ASU’s School of Social Transformation. At the College of Law, he teaches business and corporate law, legal ethics and professional responsibility, bioethics in health care and law and literature. In 2008-2009 Lynk was a Visiting Honors Faculty Fellow in ASU’s Barrett, The Honors College. In 2010 he received the Outstanding Faculty Award from the College of Law’s Alumni Association. From 2004 to 2010 he served as ASU’s NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative.