The park or the cage?
What a rat experiment revealed about how you behave
🏷️ Categories: Behavior, Social relationships.
Imagine you are a rat.
Not just any rat, one that is locked in a small cage. You have nothing to do. You can't explore. You can't socialize. In front of you, there are 2 choices.
Fresh water or water mixed with morphine.
If you take the water with morphine, you will feel relief. It will anesthetize you against boredom, loneliness and lack of stimulation. And if you drink it enough times, you won't even be affected by your ailments.
This was the basis of the first experiments on addiction in rats, where, locked in cages, they consumed water with morphine instead of pure water. Bruce Alexander and his group of scientists asked themselves a question (Alexander at al., 1981).
If we change the rats' environment, will they continue to drink morphine water?
To find out, he built the “Rat Park”. A rat paradise: a large space, with other rodents, plenty of food, toys and freedom to move around. It was about 200 times bigger than the usual laboratory cage and they were given the same choice: normal water or water with morphine. But here came the surprise.
The rats in the “Rat Park” consumed hardly any morphine.
What does this mean? That the environment matters. More than we usually think. And that addiction might not just be a chemical issue, but also an environmental one.
Much more than chemistry
The prevailing idea is that addiction is a simple biological reaction to a chemical substance, but the reality is more complex. If addiction were only chemical, the rats in “Rat Park” would have consumed morphine at a similar rate to those in cages. But they did not.
This also occurs in humans.
During the Vietnam War, about 20% of soldiers were found to be using heroin (Robins et al., 2010). A massive addiction crisis was feared when they returned home. But the unexpected happened: the majority who used heroin in the war stopped using it without problems upon their return to the US.
The reason: they changed their environment.
They went from a place of stress and terror to a safe environment with family and friends. Like the rats in “Rat Park,” the new context eliminated the need for the drug. There is a much more stimulating environment to enjoy.
The environmental factor
Environmental factors such as continuous stress and isolation increase the risk of developing an addiction (Goeders, 2002; Lu, 2003; Sinha, 2008).
As in the rat experiment, if people live in conditions of constant anxiety, poverty or loneliness, the environment does not provide any pleasurable stimuli and a drug (or any other escape route) becomes a quick fix. If people have a full life, meaningful connections and a sense of purpose, the need for a chemical or similar solution diminishes.
That is what is known as environmental enrichment (Chauvet et al., 2009).
When the environment is rewarding, there is no need to seek gratification elsewhere.
What it tells us about society
If the environment influences addiction, then the way we approach the drug problem is not adequate. Instead of just punishing consumers and producers, we should be asking ourselves a question....
What cages do these people live in?
Chemical addiction to the substance is important, but as you've seen, the environment also affects. If someone has no social connections, stability and lives in an oppressive environment, they will look for an escape route. Drug use is the consequence of the problem, not the source of the problem.
I will give you an example that illustrates the point I am making.
Portugal decriminalized drug use in 2001 and invested in rehabilitation and social reintegration programs. Not only drug producers and users were prosecuted, the affected people were helped to enrich their environment, to “get out of their cages” (Greenwald, 2009; Tavares, 2009).
The result?
Rates of addiction and overdose death were significantly reduced.
Create spaces where people are safe and supported. No one is alone.
Design rehabilitation plans that offer opportunity rather than punishment.
It's not just a chemical issue. It's where these people live, what are the positive stimuli in their environment. The park or the cage. That's the question.
✍️ Your turn: Do you know someone who has changed drastically by changing their environment?
💭 Quote of the Day: “We need the possibility of escape as surely as hope; without it, city life would drive all men to crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.” — Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire.
See you next time! 👋
References 📚
Alexander, B. K., Beyerstein, B. L., Hadaway, P. F., & Coambs, R. B. (1981). Effect of early and later colony housing on oral ingestion of morphine in rats. Pharmacology Biochemistry And Behavior, 15(4), 571-576. URL
Chauvet, C., Lardeux, V., Goldberg, S. R., Jaber, M., & Solinas, M. (2009). Environmental Enrichment Reduces Cocaine Seeking and Reinstatement Induced by Cues and Stress but Not by Cocaine. Neuropsychopharmacology, 34(13), 2767-2778. URL
Goeders, N. E. (2002). Stress and Cocaine Addiction. Journal Of Pharmacology And Experimental Therapeutics, 301(3), 785-789. URL
Greenwald, G. (2009). Drug decriminalization in Portugal: lessons for creating fair and successful drug policies.
Lu, L., Shepard, J. D., Hall, F. S., & Shaham, Y. (2003). Effect of environmental stressors on opiate and psychostimulant reinforcement, reinstatement and discrimination in rats: a review. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 27(5), 457-491. URL
Robins, L. N., Helzer, J. E., Hesselbrock, M., & Wish, E. (2010). Vietnam Veterans Three Years after Vietnam: How Our Study Changed Our View of Heroin. American Journal On Addictions, 19(3), 203-211. URL
Sinha, R. (2008). Chronic stress, drug use, and vulnerability to addiction. Annals of the new York Academy of Sciences, 1141(1), 105-130.
Tavares, A. (2009). The impact of drug decriminalization in Portugal. The Economist.
I dare say that drug use from Vietnam vets may have changed rather than disappeared. Less lethal drugs like marijuana took the place of heroin in most cases, although various forms of meth also became a problem. Here in Nevada, the environment is bleak most of the time. Jobs are menial and public educational systems have been mediocre. Over the past couple of decades, though, the arts and a wider diversity of tech and other kinds of employment have fostered a most interesting lifestyle environment. Public art and recreation abounds with murals, sculptures, festivals, farmers' markets, and other events that offer free or inexpensive enrichment for most people. Oddly enough, the casinos become community centers for seniors and those living in small rural towns. There are still a lot of drug problems, but generally, people are responding to this growing variety of fun things to do.
We have been thinking of exploring the Portugal case study for a while, I hope we get to do an in depth analysis this year.