Despite such reports of benefits to the public from practices and policies generated by research based on the brain disease model of addiction, mobilizing support for further research will require the public to become better educated about the genetic, age-related, and environmental susceptibilities to addiction as they relate to structural and functional changes in the brain. If early voluntary drug use goes undetected and unchecked, the resulting changes in the brain can ultimately erode a person’s ability to control the impulse to take addictive drugs.
