Actor Martin Sheen to speak about drug abuse, recovery at Western Michigan University

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Ambrosia Neldon

News Editor

Emmy and Golden Globe winner Martin Sheen will speak about his views on substance abuse at a conference at Western Michigan University next week.

Sheen, popularly known for his roles in films such as Wall Street and The Badlands, or television roles like in West Wing, also serves as a drug treatment advocate in his spare time. Sheen is an activist for social justice and peace issues and was the first all rise ambassador for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP). Over the past ten years, Sheen has supported drug courts and participated in commercials, rallies, U.S. Senate meetings and a variety of other venues in support of NADCP.

On Thursday, Oct. 4, Sheen and other speakers will talk about how Kalamazoo residents can combat substance abuse in their community at the fifth annual Coming Together conference in WMUs Fetzer Center.

The purpose of this event is to reach out to the community to start and to continue a conversation about the abuse of substances and also the possibilities and hopes for recovery, said Judge William Schma, the president of the Drug Treatment Court Foundation and a retired circuit court judge. We seek to educate the community and professionals about substance abuse disorders and recovery issues.

Coming Together: A Community Conference on Addiction and Recovery is an event hosted collaboratively by the Drug Treatment Court Foundation and the Community Healing Center in Kalamazoo.

Schma said one of the main goals of the conference is to eliminate the stigma attached to drug users.

Substance abuse is a disease, just like hypertension, a heart disease, etc. It needs treatment or it goes out of control, just like all those other disorders. The stigma is that people think that its a moral issue. People think that theres something some personality deficiency in people who abuse substances, he said.

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Actor Martin Sheen to speak about drug abuse, recovery at Western Michigan University