"Drug addiction: The complex truth"

[handmade34]

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130910-drug-addiction-the-complex-truth

We’re told studies have proven that drugs like heroin and cocaine instantly hook a user. But it isn’t that simple – a set of little-known experiments carried out over 30 years ago tells a very different tale...Taking cocaine can change the structure of the brain within hours in what could be the first steps of drug addiction, according to US researchers.
Drugs are scary. The words “heroin” and “cocaine” make people flinch. It's not just the associations with crime and harmful health effects, but also the notion that these substances can undermine the identities of those who take them. One try, we're told, is enough to get us hooked. This, it would seem, is confirmed by animal experiments.

Many studies have shown rats and monkeys will neglect food and drink in favour of pressing levers to obtain morphine (the lab form of heroin). With the right experimental set up, some rats will self-administer drugs until they die. At first glance it looks like a simple case of the laboratory animals losing control of their actions to the drugs they need. It's easy to see in this a frightening scientific fable about the power of these drugs to rob us of our free will.

But there is more to the real scientific story, even if it isn't widely talked about. The results of a set of little-known experiments carried out more than 30 years ago paint a very different picture, and illustrate how easy it is for neuroscience to be twisted to pander to popular anxieties...

http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/

[Th1onein]

1. Somebody, a while back, said something to this effect and was pummeled.

I don't even remember who it was, but he said something like, if he had to live a life in poverty without hope, he would turn to drugs, too.

[handmade34]

4. "live a life in poverty without hope"

makes drugs an alternative

[Warpy]

2. Thank you for this

It's about time people understand the big lies the whole drug war is founded on.

At the base of all of it is fear of brown people and fear that if people treat their own pain, they'll be inefficient workers.

Add to that the strong Puritan streak that is suspicious of any pleasure at all, and you end up with the War on Drugs.

[handmade34]

3. if only

this could change some minds...

[woo me with science]

5. Thank you for this.

It's a tremendous mistake to measure "sickness" by difficulty coping in a profoundly sick society.

These findings do not surprise me at all.

[handmade34]

7. most of the article was...

well DUH! but this part was intriguing...

"Further support for his emphasis on living conditions came from another set of tests his team carried out in which rats brought up in ordinary cages were forced to consume morphine for 57 days in a row. If anything should create the conditions for chemical rewiring of their brains, this should be it.

But once these rats were moved to Rat Park they chose water over morphine when given the choice, although they did exhibit some minor withdrawal symptoms."

[Fumesucker]

6. A neighbor of mine recently had a quintuple bypass at 42 years old

And yet he's unable to quit smoking the cigarettes that he freely acknowledges may kill him soon.

[Th1onein]

8. So what? What does this have to do with the topic of the article?

Nothing.

[Fumesucker]

12. Just pointing out one of the more addictive drugs available in our society

A drug that often seems to fly under the radar so to speak when harm to individuals and society from addiction is mentioned.

[Th1onein]

16. Oh, it doesn't fly under the radar.

I'm a smoker, myself. We are one of the most villified of addicts in this society. Yet the US government supported the tobacco industry for years, with subsidies for tobacco growers, and we were bombarded with commercials targeted at teenagers for decades. Nicotine is more addictive than cocaine and heroin combined. Very hard to quit, believe me, I've tried numerous times.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. Nicotine addiction is quite widely regarded as one of the hardest to beat.

I'm glad every damn day that I never became a smoker.

[handmade34]

13. +1

I remember that 1/2 cigarette when I was 16 and that was it for me... ugh! so glad I didn't continue... probably would have died from lung cancer by now

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Addiction is a symptom, often, of wider social problems, to be sure.

As well as sometimes a cause.

For instance, we hear a great deal about the meth epidemic in middle America- and, no doubt, as ugly drugs go meth is one of the worst. However, what is often not mentioned are the numbers of people working two or three minimum wage jobs just to keep their heads above water. No benefits. Maybe a, what, 18 hour work day?

Yeah, how the fuck is someone going to maintain that? Um, well, meth. At least for a little while, until the shit falls apart.

[PowerToThePeople]

11. But, we live in a big park

I think the issue is more that we are constantly fed the consumerism line. This leads us to think we need things and money for happiness. There is so much of the world still available at little or no cost. It is there if we choose to search for it. Some do not see it. Some have to be spoon-fed life. Some get upset if what they are spoon-fed is not to their liking. I guess my point is, "Do not rely on others to create your happiness. Create your own happiness."

[Recursion]

14. Rat Park! I cited that in a biomed paper

The Prof was amazed I had heard of it.

[handmade34]

15. nice!

more info for those who don't know...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park