[force_reboot]

It's natural for compassionate people to prefer to characterize addition as a disease, because it gives a powerful argument for treating people with addiction compassionately. But this is deriving an "is" from an "ought".

In fact its very common in this kind of discussion to see an argument like "If you believe <positive statement> then you must support <morally abhorrent policy>". But mostly the morally abhorrent policy doesn't actually follow from the positive statement, and if the person making this argument were forced to accept the positive statement, they would not in fact support the policy. In this debate

  <positive statement> = addiction is not a disease

  <morally abhorrent policy> = people with addiction don't deserve any sympathy or help

[posterboy]

There's no positive statement, there's a not in there. I do believe this makes a difference.

[force_reboot]

when I say "positive statement" I mean in the positive/normative sense.