Michael botticelli biography

Michael Botticelli

Former Executive Director of the Grayken Center for Addiction Medicine, Former Director of White House Office of National Drug Control Policy

Michael Botticelli is the former Executive Director of the Grayken Center for Addiction Medicine at Boston Medical Center and a Distinguished Policy Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

Mr. Botticelli is the former Director of National Drug Control Policy for the Obama Administration after being unanimously confirmed by the Senate. He joined the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) as Deputy Director in November and later served as Acting Director. Mr. Botticelli led the Obama Administration’s drug policy efforts, based on a balanced public health and safety approach. Under Mr. Botticelli&#;s leadership, the Administration advanced historic drug policy reforms and innovations in prevention, criminal justice, treatment and recovery.

In response to the national opioid epidemic, Mr. Botticelli coordinated actions across the federal government to reduce prescription drug abuse, heroin use and related overdoses. This included support for comm

Five Ted talks that will tell you all you need to know about addiction

Addiction has affected the lives of so many people around the world and it continues to be as prominent as ever before. Seeking help is always the answer.

But help can come in all manner of forms, and for all manner of people, whether you’ve been directly affected by addiction and are struggling yourself or are a family member looking to support a loved one, pay the cost of rehab or get the support you need during a difficult time.

While seeking professional help is the best option, there’s also plenty of advice and help online too, including some fascinating TED talks. So if you’re struggling with addiction, supporting someone, or would like to find out more about the issue, here are five TED Talks you should give a go…

&#;Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong&#; – Johann Hari

One of the more famous TED Talks around addiction, Johann Hari, a journalist, looks to challenge the conventional views on what causes addiction and the treatments that can be used for it. The talk features arguments that state that addiction isn’t necessarily just about the chemical hooks that substances pro

After 40 years and a trillion dollars, the nation has little to show for its war on drugs. Prisons are beyond crowded and there's a new outbreak in the heroin epidemic. If it's time for a change, it would be hard to find a leader more different than Michael Botticelli. The president's new Director of National Drug Control Policy isn't a cop. He's lucky he didn't go to jail himself. And we knew that things had changed the first time we used the nickname that comes with his job, the "drug czar."

Michael Botticelli: It's actually a title that I don't like.

Scott Pelley: Why?

Michael Botticelli: Because I think it connotes this old "war on drugs" focus to the work that we do. It portrays that we are clinging to kind of failed policies and failed practices in the past.

Scott Pelley: Are you saying that the way we have waged the war on drugs for more than 40 years has been all wrong?

Michael Botticelli: It has been all wrong.

Blunt force didn't knock out the drug epidemic. 21 million Americans are addicted to drugs or alcohol. And half of all federal inmates are in for drug crimes.

Michael Botticelli: We can't arrest and incarcerate addiction out of people. N