Carl Hart: The drug data pusher

[archerships]

Hart next tried offering these participants the choice between a low dose of meth and a small monetary voucher, at different times of day. The prediction was that, meth being a potent reinforcer, users would take it compulsively; what he found was that people would take it in the morning but not in the evening, when it would stop them sleeping -- using it to get through the day in the same way office workers self-administer caffeine; and if the monetary reward was large enough, they would pass up the dose. These findings call into question the notion that addiction is driven by the reward of a chemically induced euphoria and that meth -- legally prescribed to treat ADHD, narcolepsy and obesity -- is the destructive drug so maligned by the NIDA and the popular press. Hart's conclusion was that his subjects were indeed making rational choices about their drug use.

via wired.co.uk

Posted via web from crasch's posterous

Comments

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

I'm slightly skeptical about the history the article describes - did psychologists in the '60s really still believe psychoanalytic categories of id and superego really meant anything? I can imagine people in the '20s thinking that, but after decades of behaviorism and the rise of cognitive psychology, the only way I could imagine people talking about the id and superego in relation to drugs is if psychotherapists were the only psychologists who went into this area - which I suppose is possible.

In some sense, the conclusions of these studies aren't very surprising at all. I don't think that anyone thinks that addiction entirely beats out rational decision-making. Perhaps that's the official view of some theories of addiction, but it seems more plausible to me that addiction would only lead to irrational decisions in a small degree, and not a large degree - for instance, someone offered a choice between another hit and 10 cents might take the extra hit even if they know it'll cost them some sleep, but that extremely irrational decisions (turning down 100 dollars, or skipping an important meeting to have another hit) would only happen if users are extremely addicted, rather than having been given mild doses in a controlled setting.

This is especially true if they only have to decide once between drugs and money, rather than the ecological scenario where they've got the drugs sitting in their cabinet and it takes conscious will all evening not to reach for it. It would be interesting to see how things changed if the drug was just always available, and their bank account was only credited a day later after we see whether they eventually took the drug or not.

At any rate, it's good to see that some real studies are taking place, even if most of what they've discovered isn't very surprising. It's good to get confirmation of a view, especially when people seem to have gotten less plausible theories into their heads somehow.

Incidentally, I wonder if this can shed light on some of the differences between human and animal cognition. If animals don't consciously deliberate about future rewards and costs, but instead behave in a more classical Pavlovian way, then that might explain some of the divergences between human and animal models.