The study in question was a large study about returning Vietnam vets. Rather than relying on snippets and rumors, Bryan Caplan at the "Bet On It" site went to the original study to see how good it was and what it actually said. What a concept, eh? What the Infamous Heroin Study Said . I found it enlightening. I worked with drug abousers over my career, but seldom heroin users. Cannabis, alcohol, cocaine, opioids, benzos, hallucinogens - I saw lab results positive for those much more often. Still, a lot of this rang true about situational drug use and likelihood of addiction.
I accept the casual use of the word “addict,” but the philosophical insinuation that “addicts” are incapable of self-help is deeply false. In fact, the majority of soldiers who were officially “addicted” to heroin during the Vietnam War really did go cold turkey after returning home. Only about 10% “readdicted.” The reason, to repeat, was not that heroin was unavailable in the United States, but that most veterans no longer wanted to use.
Yes, you could insist, “The 10% who readdicted had no choice.” But why assume that everyone who has a choice will choose well?
He reports on 10 common claims about what the study found and discovered that these were only patly correct, sometimes badly so. A good mythbuster sort of article.
3 comments:
Our pastor is currently going through a series of sermons on the Seven Deadly Sins. Would you say there is some relation between addiction and gluttony? To say that gluttons are addicted to food or that drug addicts are gluttonous for their drug seems too simple or a misuse of terms, but could there be other relationships?
Might one say that letting yourself become addicted is an instance of gluttony? Or that giving in to the addictive impulse on any given occasion is an instance of gluttony?
It just seems odd that there should be two disorders of consumption with no relation to each other.
A predisposition to sensation-seeking, which is one of the Big Five (and HEXACO) personality traits? There are sins I am not much tempted to, others I am a lot. We don't all have the same starting line, so I don't know what that means about finish lines.
Circa 1985, I read a book that stated that 10% of the population was and would always be addicted to a drug of some sort, but that the population of this 10% was variable. I *think* the author was Michael Gazzaniga.
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