well, first of all, i think it's been a shame that ondcp and the federal government generally hasn't recognized recovery more broadly and fully. and we want to change that. we're opening an office of recovery to-to do a lot of the things that were talked about. but government generally, from the ondcp perspective i think the first thing starts with saying what you want. what government wants is people to get into recovery. we don't just want people to be abstinent, we want them to have a full, rich life in recovery. so that's a good start. that's not enough. government needs to do more as the major purchaser of addiction services to start purchasing systems of care, not pieces. many states, many cities will tell you, yeah, we have a recovery- oriented system of care. this group over here does detox, that group over there does, you know, rehab, this group over here does long-term out-patient. but they haven't purchased a system. it's like saying i have a car-the wheels are down in the basement, the transmission's up there in the attic-i got a car. well, the car doesn't run. and we nee

so gil kerlikowske, the director of ondcp and i and lots of people at ondc are very, very proud to be working with the faces and voices of recovery, which is one of the organizations, and with samhsa on-on doing everything we possibly can to support this. alexandre, how important is that to have support for recovery as you're looking to conduct further studies in that field? well, it's critical because so far there's been an enormous amount of federal investment which has contributed landmark findings and really lifesaving findings in many ways, scientifically speaking, in terms of the ideology of addiction, what is the cause, as tom said, it's a brain disease, it's a biological condition, and it's really started to contribute significantly to moving away from the stigma where people looked at addiction, alcoholism, drug dependence as a moral failing or the person was just bad and weak to something where the person has a condition, which is perhaps chronic, but it is a condition that can be managed. so we have a science of addiction which has saved many lives. what we don't have is th

talk about them and say hey have you been to the partnership for drug free america's youth site or ondcp or samhsa's youth site because they are very well done. parents can go to sites by those same organizations and find some real live tips on what to do. so i think that being engaged is important. and no, i think no parent is going to be able to keep up with their kids' use, but that doesn't mean they can't plug in and know a few well-chosen reliable web sites that are very engaging and talk the kids' language so that those kids have an alternative to the beer marketing and to the pro-drug messages. that's exactly right. you have to have something that is as enticing as myspace and youtube that gives them a positive message that looks for lack of a better word, i've been told this is used, sexy. it's got to be a sexy site so they will gravitate toward that rather than going towards something that's detrimental and self-destructive with a positive message but looks the same. it catches them that this is sexy and they will go to that site. that's right. a lot of beer marketing sites do s