Discrimination against drug addicts that suffer with an addiction, only a few will receive treatment due to the complexity of health care systems. Most health care systems do not have insurance coverage for addiction recovery and many health care providers have little to no training in treating addiction. Some doctors do not feel comfortable treating an addiction due to their lack of knowledge and training of the topic. This is one of the reasons why drug dependence is difficult to recover from. Among injecting drug users, the incidence of HIV infection is higher than among other drug addicts, however punitive and discriminatory measures against
History of the Food and Drug Administration authority to seize, arrest, and prosecute for possession and sales of these substances, even in states where they are legal under state law. The first wave was the legalization by 27 states of laetrile in the late 1970s. This drug was used as a treatment for cancer, but scientific studies both before and after this legislative trend found it to be ineffective. Federal law enforcement prevented interstate shipment, making the drug infeasible to manufacture and sell. Further studies based on a Mexican formulation also showed no effectiveness in treating cancer, but did find that some patients experienced symptoms of cyanide