In this book, social work practitioners, theorists, and researchers offer new perspectives on the meaning, role, and history of addiction in our society and the construction of illicit drug use as a social problem. Some of the contributors discuss assessment tools and therapeutic programs being employed today in the treatment of addicted individuals. These papers work together to educate the aspiring helping professional and the practitioner in the field about the very complex and ubiquitous problem of addiction, while underlining the centrality of addiction as another form of the oppression addressed daily by social workers. Editors Rick Csiernik and William Rowe want to extend and enrich the education and on-going discussion of addiction within the social work community in order to help increasing numbers of individuals through better legislation, informed institutions, and more effective treatment alternatives.

Culmination of five years of research and effort by the National Planning Committee on Training in the Addictions Field (NPC), a Working Group of the Federal Provincial Sub-Committee on Alcohol and Other Drug Problems.