Completely untrue and without a scintilla of scientific fact to back it up.
Unless an individual has a psychological or physiological predisposition, nothing can "make" them an addict. Studies after the Vietnam war established that US soldiers who abused heroin during their tours of service, gave up the drug easily upon returning home. They suffered some mild physiological (dirrhoea, sweating, a sleepless night or two maybe) withdrawal effects but not the horrors seen on film and TV.
I am amazed at the way otherwise, smart, educated people buy into the tabloid stories like "I'm an addict because - my parents didn't love me, we lived beside a pub, I didn't finish school, I never had the correct brand of runners as a kid, etc."
Addiction (chemical dependency) is not a secondary illness brought on by some other condition or illness, it stands as a primary illness. Unlike cancer for example which can result from environmental factors as well as "spontaneously" within the body, addiction is not a consequence of something else and is not caused by the substance(s) consumed and certainly not by peer or family pressures.
I see the nonsense of "hard drugs" has entered the conversation too. The other bad news is that there is no such thing as a hard or indeed a soft drug. Every addict has his or her drug(s) (or behaviours) of choice and that drug or combination of drugs is what floats his/her boat, bringing about their preferred altered state or preventing withdrawals.
There is, based on recent research, a "defective" gene that causes some obese people to eat to excess. This gene is supposed to trigger the "I'm full" message to stop eating, but for some people it doesn't fire. Despite repeated announcements of magic drugs and other treatments to cure addiction and genetic engineering initiatives to switch off chemical dependency, nothing so far has worked.
Like the poor, as long as we have humans, addiction and other primary and indeed secondary illness will most likely be always with us.