HOUGHTON — The Western Upper Peninsula Health Department (WUPHD) has expanded into addressing Substance Use Disorder (SUD), both as a disorder and a brain disease, in the community, because SUD, as a brain disease has reached a public health crisis, worldwide, across the nation, and in the Copper Country.

“Addiction is now considered a chronic, relapsing, life-threatening disease,” said Gail Ploe, Health Education Coordinator at WUPHD. “And so, if you, or anyone else, is interested in learning more about addiction as a disease, you can literally look at the Surgeon General’s report in 2016. He released a very lengthy report called Facing Addiction in America, and that report definitively ends the argument once and for all of whether or not addiction, or Substance Use Disorder, is a disease.”

The report Ploe is referring to is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Surgeon General released the results of a study, published as The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health in 2016, states, on pages 1-6:

“Addiction: The most severe form of substance use disorder, associated with compulsive or uncontrolled use of one or more substances. Addiction is a chronic brain disease that has the potential for both recurrence (relapse) and recovery.”