Thread: Rats!

Pot Use Among Colorado Teens Appears to Drop After Legalization - US News

Rat Park - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rat Park was a study into drug addiction conducted in the late 1970s (and published in 1980) by Canadian psychologist Bruce K. Alexander and his colleagues at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.

Alexander's hypothesis was that drugs do not cause addiction, and that the apparent addiction to opiate drugs commonly observed in laboratory rats exposed to it is attributable to their living conditions, and not to any addictive property of the drug itself.[1] He told the Canadian Senate in 2001 that prior experiments in which laboratory rats were kept isolated in cramped metal cages, tethered to a self-injection apparatus, show only that "severely distressed animals, like severely distressed people, will relieve their distress pharmacologically if they can."[2]

It's relevance to Today,

Human-Sized Rat Cages Target Teen Marijuana Use « CBS Denver

The campaign set up cages in various locations around the state, including the Denver Public Library, a skate park west of downtown, Fort Collins and Red Rocks. Tarps covering them were expected to be removed Monday morning.



“Kids buy into it. They understand the research and the facts behind it,”Mike Sukle, one of the campaign’s creators, said.
Subtitles in the ad, across a grim lineup of scientists in lab coats, read: “Northwestern University scientists discovered that teen marijuana use caused lasting memory loss.” A website running in conjunction with the campaign warns, “Scientists from Duke to Cambridge have uncovered a laundry list of troubling side effects. Schizophrenia. Permanent IQ loss. Stunted brain growth.”

I thought I would start with my Argument, Rather then with the article itself.
Read the Ad Campaign ad before you Reply.

Stupid ad campaign is stupid. Might as well just put tvs in them with Reefer Madness playing on them. Haven't people figured out that the fear mongering has already backfired?


Someone should put lions in all of the cages.

Originally Posted by BruceBloodMaster

As someone who is old enough to have done and Lived through every drug you could use ......... Its ALL just a Waste of time and money !

BRUCE!!!!

Damn nice to see you.

I love the Rat Park experiment! The big thing for me that comes out of that experiment is really questioning what is addiction? I think there is a problem with how that is defined, as it isn't defined very well (it is a very loose term). You hear the idea that "Pot isn't addictive", which (I think, if what I remember is actually true) is a true statement - if you define addiction as the drug creating a physical dependency. With that, you hear people say that someone can become addicted to video games, or sex, or pornography, ect. These addictions are in no way a physical dependency, so what is addiction? Ever since I read about the rat park experiment I try to differentiate between a physical dependency addiction (or as I would say just a physical dependency), and an addiction that is rooted more in habits and surroundings. I think there is a big problem with how things are defined, and the arbitrarity is a big cause for many of the miscommunication and problems surrounding the talk of 'addiction' (which of course I see no solution for).

For this ad campaign, I think it is, interesting, though one sided (obviously). Fear mongering isn't the way to reach most people. We will see a drop in drug use from allowing it, as things you're allowed to do are far less interesting. I'm all for the reference to the rat park experiment, and educating the teens, that yes your use will be allow us to over time learn more about how the drug affects the human body (how long did it take for smoking to be show to be harmful?) , but the fear mongering, I'd think we would have more advanced ideas than that...

Originally Posted by BruceBloodMaster

As someone who is old enough to have done and Lived through every drug you could use ......... Its ALL just a Waste of time and money !

Damn Bruce where you been ? As a peer of your's I concur but back in the day I can't say that I didn't enjoy them and will still have a hit or two sitting around a campfire with a beer and some friends if the occasion arises.

Oh as for the ad campaign...stupid, but I wish I'd gotten the contract to build the cages I imagine they paid some good money for them.

Man, reminds me of how many actual rats the biomed building at Tech goes through.

Anywho, it's not that marijuana causes schizophrenia; it's that it brings out the symptoms earlier in those who are predisposed to schizophrenia and makes the symptoms of those who are "actively" schizophrenic worse. Those people would be have full blown schizophrenia regardless. Marijuana just accelerates the process.

A GT 610 is pretty low end in terms of capability.