(2017-01-22) The Likely Cause Of Addiction Has Been Discovered

The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think

It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned (War on Drugs)

we have been told a story about addiction

Until I set off three and a half years ago on a 30,000-mile journey for my new book, Chasing The Scream: The First And Last Days of the War on Drugs, to figure out what is really driving the drug war, I believed it too.

rat will become obsessed with the drugged water

The rat is put in the cage all alone. It has nothing to do but take the drugs

The rats with good lives didn't like the drugged water

at the same time as the Rat Park experiment -- a helpful human equivalent taking place. It was called the Vietnam War

But in fact some 95 percent of the addicted soldiers -- according to the same study -- simply stopped. Very few had rehab. They shifted from a terrifying cage back to a pleasant one, so didn't want the drug any more.

medical users just stop, despite months of use. The same drug, used for the same length of time, turns street-users into desperate addicts and leaves medical patients unaffected.

So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.

just 17.7 percent of cigarette smokers are able to stop using nicotine patches

Ironically, the war on drugs actually increases all those larger drivers of addiction

Portugal had one of the worst drug problems in Europe... transfer all the money they used to spend on arresting and jailing drug addicts, and spend it instead on reconnecting them -- to their own feelings, and to the wider society. The most crucial step is to get them secure housing, and subsidized jobs so they have a purpose in life, and something to get out of bed for. I watched as they are helped, in warm and welcoming clinics... injecting drug use is down by 50 percent... The main campaigner against the decriminalization back in 2000 was Joao Figueira, the country's top drug cop. He offered all the dire warnings that we would expect from the Daily Mail or Fox News. But when we sat together in Lisbon, he told me that everything he predicted had not come to pass -- and he now hopes the whole world will follow Portugal's example.

The rise of addiction is a symptom of a deeper sickness in the way we live

tempting to follow the tough love advice

But in fact, I learned, that will only deepen their addiction