Chabad Hosts Lecture on Combating Drug Abuse

Although she was initially unsure whether science could effectively influence national policy, Harvard Medical School psychobiology professor Bertha Madras discovered how she could use her background as a researcher to address the problems of drug addiction and youth drug use, she said in a Monday lecture.

Madras’ “basic science” background in chemistry allows her to understand many aspects of drug use and addiction, she said in the talk, “A Scientist in the White House: Reducing Youth Drug Use as a National Imperative.”

The most fundamental reason that drugs influence the brain is that they chemically resemble its own signaling system, she said.

Madras began her career as a researcher in the fields of chemistry and cell biology at Harvard Medical School over 25 years ago, she said. She then moved to researching behavior and imaging techniques, at which point the Disney Corporation licensed material she produced about how drug use affects the human brain. Soon after, the U.S. government appointed her to the position of deputy director for Demand Reduction at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, she said.

“Drug use disorders haunt me because out of these very simple plants come drugs such as heroin, cocaine, tetrahydrocannabinol and methamphetamine,” she said.

Advanced chemistry, advancements in mass marketing and the invention of the needle and syringe have all contributed to an increase in drug use, she said. Advanced scientific methods that allow for the isolation of powerful active chemicals in plants have particularly led to more profound effects on drug users’ brains, she said.

Peer pressure, genetics, parental attitudes and disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can affect the likelihood that a child will use drugs, she said. It is still not possible, however, to predict who will become addicted.

“If parents have strong stands against drugs, kids will use [marijuana] at a rate of 5 percent,” she said “If the parents don’t care or advocate for it or are indifferent, the use rate among the same age group is 35 to 37 percent.”

Although 50 percent of Americans are currently in favor of the legalization of marijuana, Madras views this stance as part of a continuing cycle in how drugs are viewed in the United States, she said. Drug use is first met with “social tolerance” but eventually leads to resistance when “the cost and consequence rise to a point where there is a vast movement to try to restrain unfettered access and use,” she said.

Youth drug use has spiked with the increasing sales of prescription opioid drugs for non-acute pain, Madras said.

“Since 2008, use among 12 grades of illicit drugs has increased 15 percent,” she said. “Ninety-five percent of people with a medical diagnosis of abuse or dependence feel they do not treatment and do not seek help.”

Drug use by youths presents particularly dangerous consequences because youths’ brains are still developing, she said.

“Addiction is a high risk if use begins before age 15,” Madras said. “The younger the age of use [of a first drug], the higher the use of other drugs. Nobody knows why, but we do know that this is a period of rapid brain development.”

While working for the government, Madras’ responsibilities included reducing the national demand for drugs, reducing the economic costs of drug abuse, helping specific populations such as adolescents and the elderly and focusing on the interaction between drug use in other countries and the United States.

There are currently “20 million people with abuse or addiction who go undiagnosed because they don’t think they have a problem and don’t present any of their substance abuse, and more than 70 million people engaged in risky problematic use,” Madras said.

Because she wanted to retain her position at Harvard, Madras was only able to work as the deputy director for two years, she said. Her two years in the position were marked by significant challenges including research voids, a slow-moving budget process and work days in excess of 14 hours, she said.

Madras, who had no previous political experience, was initially unsure whether science would be able to drive policy changes.

“Believe it or not, there’s an awful lot of science in policy,” she said. “This was a shock to me when I arrived in Washington. The federal government does phenomenal research, and sometimes they use it to make policy. But policy is a hybrid of ethics, morality, of pressures, of special interest groups, of common thinking, of votes. Policy is always going to be a hybrid.”

Chabad at Dartmouth hosted the lecture, and Chabad Executive Director Rabbi Moshe Gray said that Madras’ lecture is well-connected to Chabad’s mission.

“Chabad at Dartmouth came here with the notion to try to help enrich students lives, give them a sense of purpose if they’re missing it and enhance their purpose,” he said.

Six years ago, Gray was contacted by a Dartmouth alumnus with whom he had worked closely during the student’s undergraduate years. The student, who was addicted to heroin, reached out to Gray for guidance and is now drug-free, he said.

“I thought the lecture was very informative, and I learned a lot, particularly about the history of drug use in the United States,” Chabad co-president Coleman Shear ’13 said.

Chabad membership and communications chair Julie Shabto ’14 also said she was interested in Madras’ discussion of “the difficulties in developing and integrating effective public policy in the White House.”