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Opinion
In the late 1970s, a series of experiments were conducted by Canadian psychologist Bruck K Alexander that purported to show that drug addiction was caused by social isolation.
The experiment involved putting rats in small cages with the choice of plain water or morphine. The rats in the cages chose the morphine.
The rats were then put in an area called Rat Park. Here the rats had free rein and everything a rat could possibly want; toys, rat buddies, etc. When the rats were put in Rat Park, they rejected the morphine and chose the plain water instead.
At first sight, the experiment seems to be a slam dunk: drug addiction is a result of social isolation. Certainly, this was how it was portrayed in the media.
But there were some problems.
First, the number of rats used was small, raising questions about the sample size.
Second, in order to be valid, an experiment should give the same results every time. This certainly wasn’t true when attempts to replicate the experiments were done by others.
Third, saying that the Rat Park experiments “prove” that drug addiction is a result of social isolation ignores other possible reasons why the rats chose plain water over morphine.
The Rat Park experiments also featured a simplistic view of addiction. According to the American Psychiatric Association, substance dependence is characterised by (1) a compulsion to seek and take the drug, (2) loss of control in limiting intake and (3) a negative emotional state (anxiety, irritability) when access to the drug is prevented. If the rats were able to choose water over morphine and did so, then how can we say that they were actually addicted?
I’ve known more than my fair share of addicts, mostly alcoholics. Nearly all of them I would regard as not very nice people, even minus the addiction. Some I would call sociopaths with an “I can do whatever I want and screw everybody else” attitude. None of them I would regard as being socially isolated.
In my opinion, we are far too lenient on drug addicts. Sure, no one chooses to be a drug addict, but that doesn’t mean addicts shouldn’t take responsibility for the choices that helped get them there in the first place. By far the majority of drug users don’t become addicts. For example, even though heroin has a reputation for being highly addictive, the percentage of users who become addicted is just 13 per cent, the highest for any illicit drug, followed by crack cocaine (nine per cent), marijuana (six per cent), stimulants (five per cent) and powder cocaine (four per cent). (This is not to imply that heroin is safe. It definitely isn’t, especially when purity is unknown.)
The general pattern is in fact, try, experiment, get bored and then use just on occasion, which has definitely been my own personal experience. Drug addicts make it seem that drug addiction is the norm, thus giving ammunition for the War on Drugs.
The honest truth is that the majority of recreational drugs aren’t worth the effort.
So what can experiments like Rat Park teach us? One thing it can teach us is to look at any biases the author of the experiment has. Alexander believed that addiction wasn’t about the substance but about the environment. On a positive and more basic level, Rat Park showed that – with regard to experiments involving rats – how rats are treated can affect the results of the experiment.
Rat Park was an attempt to dispel the myth of the demon drug: that is, some drugs are so addictive that they can hook users with just one hit. (As an aside, the idea of ‘one hit and you’ll be hooked’ was started by prohibitionists in the US and was originally applied to alcohol). Although social isolation in some cases could be a factor, what Rat Park did was just replace one myth with another.
However, the most important lesson we can learn from experiments like Rat Park is to never just blindly “follow the science”, especially when the science appears to support what we already believe. This is something the likes of climate activists and the current government need to learn.
