24+ Maia Szalavitz Quotes On Education, Religion And Culture

Maia Szalavitz is an American journalist, author, and science writer. She is a columnist for VICE and has written for publications such as Time, Scientific American, and The New York Times. Szalavitz is best known for her work on addiction and mental health, particularly her 2006 book, "Help at Any Cost: The True Story of How We Rescue Our Troubled Teens". Following is our collection on famous quotes by Maia Szalavitz on education, religion, culture.

Top 10 Maia Szalavitz Quotes

1. Incarceration is as useful for addiction as it is for diabetes - i.e., not useful and potentially harmful, particularly for kids.
2. I think our drug laws need to be made scientifically, as best as possible, recognizing that values will always be part of that.
3. We should not be putting kids in cages and hoping that is going to fix their psychological problems of any type.
4. A lot of the stuff that we say about drugs is just wrong.
5. Science could never get you to make alcohol and tobacco legal and marijuana illegal. Only racism can do that.
6. The thing about our drug laws is that they're not based on science.
7. Marijuana is not not harmful, but is the least harmful psychoactive substance that we have, with the possible exception of caffeine.
8. We absolutely should legalize marijuana.
9. 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.
10. In order for people to recover, we can't just say 'love is all we need.'

Maia Szalavitz Famous Quotes And Sayings

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. — Maia Szalavitz

I don't think there's a single child who's ever benefitted from being arrested for marijuana or for underage drinking; this does not solve the problem. It makes worse problems because a) it puts them into the system, and b) it gives them a potential criminal record to have to deal with and it can have consequences for school. — Maia Szalavitz

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. — Maia Szalavitz

Because addiction is a developmental problem, the developmental stage is important, things like employment are important, things like having a sense of purpose, meaning and hope are important, and this is why there's been so many spiritual cures for addiction, because those things often give people a sense of meaning and purpose. — Maia Szalavitz

The thing we want for all our kids is that they be connected with a learning community and that they have strong social and familial relationships. If we can do whatever we can do to create that and to reduce bullying and to reduce the kind of pain and shame so many kids feel for so many reasons, that stuff is going to reduce drug addiction. — Maia Szalavitz

If you're worried about a kid and drug use, the safest, best thing to do is individual counseling or family therapy, none of which will expose kids to more deviant or problematic peers and both of which are proven to be effective and at the very least, they won't hurt. — Maia Szalavitz

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

Because of the war on drugs, pain patients are treated with skepticism and pain doctors live in fear of being prosecuted for overprescribing. The end result is that addicts still get their opioids without much trouble, while genuine patients often can't find treatment. Those who do must typically be tracked in a database and must schedule frequent, expensive doctor visits for surveillance like urine testing. — Maia Szalavitz

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. — Maia Szalavitz

When President Nixon declared war on drugs on June 17, 1971, about 110 people per 100,000 in the population were incarcerated. Today, we have 2-3 million prisoners: 743 people per 100,000 in the population. The U.S. has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of its prisoners. As Senator Jim Webb once put it, Either we are home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing something different and vastly counterproductive. — Maia Szalavitz

Do we really want to base our 21st-century policy on what the colonialist preferred at a certain time in history, not at all based on health or what the preferences of different cultures might be? That's just ridiculous. — Maia Szalavitz

I don't have kids, but I've often noticed when people first become parents they seem to completely forget their own adolescence and they start to, as their kids become teenagers, try to do the things that didn't stop them themselves. And I jokingly frame this as: Your brain gets wiped of those memories when you become a parent. — Maia Szalavitz

Love is great and it does help a lot of people, but a lot of people do have things like depression or schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or other disorders, all of which will need to be addressed in order for people to stay in long-term recovery. — Maia Szalavitz

I know that sounds really extreme, but if you just look at the history, you will find Harry Anslinger [first U.S. commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics] going on about satanic swing and how reefer will make black people think they're as good as white people - which to him, obviously, was a very horrible outcome. This is the basis of our drug laws. — Maia Szalavitz

Life Lessons by Maia Szalavitz

1. Maia Szalavitz's work emphasizes the importance of understanding the root causes of addiction and mental health issues, rather than simply punishing or stigmatizing those affected.
2. She advocates for evidence-based approaches to addiction and mental health treatment, such as cognitive behavioral therapy and medication-assisted treatment.
3. Her work highlights the need for greater access to mental health care, as well as the importance of destigmatizing mental health issues and addiction.