Dr. Donald Vereen became involved with the effects of violence and then substance abuse when he was an emergency room physician.

He discovered that there was no data on violence, although there was data on heart disease and other ailments.

So, he began researching and found that violence was caused as a direct result of substance abuse.

He also saw the alteration in the pleasure centre of the substance abused brain.

Dr. Vereen saw that most people took drugs because of trauma or depression in their childhood ? something he refers to as self medicating.

?The first assumption about an addict is that it is their fault, but wait,? he said, ?If you are aware that you are in a bad situation ? you may not have been able to articulate that as a teenager. ?In adolescence it is hard enough to manage the movement into the world.

?So, the first thing is we blame the victim.

?Drug abuse is a preventable behaviour ? because it is volitional, you make a choice. My guess is that people felt they didn?t have a choice.

?You must look at the trajectory, this person was coping, this person wasn?t necessarily making a bad choice. If you look at the scope of this person?s life ? one might conclude that the person made the best choice or you might not be here?

Dr. Vereen has found that 70 percent of women in the US who are in drug treatment have a history of sexual and or physical abuse.

?I want to be very careful, because that doesn?t mean that the trauma caused the drug problem ? it is just highly associated,? he said.

?If we learn about that fact late in this person?s development, we have to deal with that in treatment, because they have wrapped up feelings, discomforts and anxieties that they have probably been treating with the drugs.?

He said in many cases a substance abuser?s motivation for taking the drug was not solely to get high and that?s what is important.

?It is a preventable, and volitional, and addiction is a brain disease,? he said.

?You can eat a pound of butter a day and I can guarantee that in six months to a year you will have a heart attack. You volitionally ate the butter and then you had a heart attack and most health care systems will take care of it no questions asked.

?But, if you volitionally take a drug and self medicate and end up with an addiction, there is a real discrimination against drug addicts. So, why are we discriminating against people with a brain disease?

?It has to do with behaviour, with a sense of you?re not in control, and that helps to fuel the stigma ? it is the ignorance of not understanding the relationship to the end state and that is what we fight with our research.?