Marking an aggressive new tactic in the fight against addiction stigma, a recovery-rights group is slamming fashion designer Christian Dior for naming its new perfume 'Dior Addict' and using the taglines "Will you admit it?" and "Get hooked on Dior's new fragrance" in its marketing materials.

Faces and Voices of Recovery organized coordinated press conferences across the country this week to announce its "Addiction is Not Fashionable" campaign aimed at Dior.

Dior launched a lipstick line called Addict last year; the perfume was unveiled last week.

"It sends the message that being an addict is cool and pleasurable," said Susan Rook, director of communications and outreach for the Faces and Voices campaign. Rook, a former CNN reporter who is in recovery, said that the Dior campaign perpetuates the belief that addiction is a moral choice rather than a medical condition. "It's a myth that I chose to become an addict," she said. "I don't know anybody who chose to be an addict."

Dior's website for Addict flashes such catchphrases as "pleasure," "sensuality," and "energy" to describe the product. "These words are all false and outrageous when you're talking about addicts," said Molly Potter, 17, a high-school student at Salem Academy in Winston-Salem, N.C. "They're mixing sex and drugs together to make them attractive, and they're not."

A spokesperson for Dior said the company would have no comment on the Faces and Voices campaign. Faces and Voices initially contacted Dior asking the company to pull its Addict ads and rename the product; a company representative said the group should put their concerns in writing.

Rook said that if the public-relations and letter-writing campaign doesn't work, the group will press magazines like Elle, Glamour, and Rolling Stone not to carry ads for Addict, and ask retailers like Macy's not to sell the perfume.

StigmaBusters

The Faces and Voices campaign against Dior Addict strongly resembles the work of the National Alliance on Mentally Ill's "StigmaBusters" project. Supported by a loose network of more than 8,600 advocates nationally, StigmaBusters was launched in 1997 to combat "inaccurate hurtful representations of mental illness" on TV, film, print, and other media.

In its most recent newsletter, for example, StigmaBusters urged members to contact Sears and other retailers to protest a T-shirt that says "You should hear the names the voices in my head are calling you," and also criticizes a Halloween costume that depicts a man in a straightjacket.

In the past, StigmaBusters led a campaign to have the ABC-TV series Wonderland (about a psychiatric hospital) canceled and protested the Jim Carrey movie "Me, Myself and Irene" (about a schizophrenic). "We've gotten a lot of good successes," said NAMI's StigmaBusters coordinator, Stella March.

Dior Addict was broadly condemned by the addiction and recovery community. In a USA Today article, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy spokesperson Tom Riley called the marketing campaign "irresponsible, sick, and sad," adding, "I think they should be more sensitive to the reality of addiction and not use a disease of the brain, which is what addiction is, to market their products."

"As a recovering alcoholic and member of Congress, I'm outraged that Christian Dior is marketing addiction to our young people," said Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.). "Dior's massive ad campaign ... is the ultimate in corporate irresponsibility and shows complete disregard for families who have lost a child to addiction."

Silver Lining for Addiction?

The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, and National Families in Action also issued statements condemning Dior Addict.

However, Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance, had mixed feelings about the anti-Dior campaign.

"On the one hand, I can understand why people in recovery would be offended by this," he said. On the other hand, he said, "It's possible that the more the words 'addict' and 'addiction' are used to refer to a broad range of behaviors ... it could result in less demonization and stigmatization of people who use illicit drugs."

Like Nadelmann, March sought to draw a line between terms used to describe an inanimate object -- generally tolerated under NAMI's anti-stigma guidelines -- and those that refer to individuals. For example, she said, StigmaBusters campaigned against a Nestle taffy snack marketed to children through names like Psycho Sam, but took a pass on criticizing a cologne called "Manic."

March said that Faces and Voices campaign against Dior Addict would be "borderline" under the NAMI guidelines. "There's no indication that they are referring to a person, just a term in the dictionary," she said. "It doesn't mention alcohol or drugs."

However, March said, people with a history of mental illness often take a harder line than NAMI on such issues. "Some consumers resent any mention of their illness," she said. "They're very sensitive."

Editor's note: Interested readers may view the Faces and Voices of Recovery action alert here.