In a criminal justice setting, it's very hard to create a therapeutic environment where people do feel safe, but the real important thing to do is to do your best to do that.

A lot of addiction actually ends by age 30 - something like 50 percent of all addictions with the exception of tobacco - and I think a lot of what's going on there is that the self-control areas of the brain are finally developed enough to be able to stop yourself from relapsing or just continuing. There is a maturational aspect to it as well.

Addiction is when you fall in love with a drug instead of a child or a lover and the learning that takes part in that part of the brain is designed by evolution to get us to persist despite negative consequences to do what we need to do - because I don't know anybody who could survive a relationship or parenting if not for the ability to persist despite negative consequences. The problem is when that gets misdirected to a drug and then you can find yourself in some very negative and potentially deadly situations.

I also had my own addiction to cocaine and heroin in my 20s. I knew that it was driven not by the things that the drug workers were telling me; in fact, I couldn't believe any drug information that was given to me by authorities because I knew from my own experience that it was wrong.

The best outcomes that are seen for therapy intervention and for other psychological interventions is where the therapist really connects and the person really feels understood. That matters often even more than the technique.

Incarceration is as useful for addiction as it is for diabetes - i.e., not useful and potentially harmful, particularly for kids.

We have a system that was devised by racists to create racist ends.