Thursday, May. 14, 2009

David Sheff

On health care
A very short time ago, it would have been unthinkable that we would be able to break apart our health-care system in ways that it needs to be broken apart. Here's an opportunity to rethink the whole thing.

On addiction
Recently President Obama said something that anybody who works in this field knows intimately: that we need a new paradigm. We have to treat addiction, drugs and mental illness for what they are: a health-care crisis. For every dollar spent to treat mental-health-related problems, we save $36 on other costs.

On drugs
In the field that I've been working in, there's a conversation about something that was unthinkable years ago: decriminalizing marijuana. Instead of sending people to jail, that money can be directed to treatment.

Watch video clips from the roundtable.