Book Author: Lauren Slater CHAPTER 7: Rat Park
Summary
Lauren Slater relates Bruce Alexander's studies on rats. His aim was to research the effect of one’s environment on one’s addiction to drugs. Alexander thought that there were no chemical causes to addiction, but rather cultural factors that played in. For his experiment, he put sixteen rats in a caged environment and sixteen rats in a “rat park,” Alexander exposed them both to morphine. What Alexander found was that the rats in the rat park chose drinking normal water over the morphine water while the caged rats preferred the morphine-laced water. Slater also discusses how his papers were not published in popular journals, and he was never highly regarded. Slater once again uses herself for the experiment. She begins taking her husbands morphine pills at night for 14 days to see if she develops an addiction, but it turns out she does not.
Discussion
Mead presents an interesting analysis on how one's environment affects his/her personal life and consequently his/her desire to use and be "addicted to" drugs. I don't know any drug addicts but it seems quite possible from documentaries I've seen. There is also an escapist attitude to it.
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