
Rat Park drug experiment cartoon - yiedyie
http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/#page-1
======
bjourne
Other researches have tried and failed to reproduce Rat Park's results:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9148292?dopt=Abstract](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9148292?dopt=Abstract)

"The results of earlier research, indicating rats housed in a quasinatural
colony drank significantly less sucrose-morphine than rats isolated in
standard laboratory cages, could not be replicated"

~~~
yiedyie
The research you mentioned specifies in the abstract a probable cause for
failing to replicate the same conditions for the experiment: _It is possible
that during a colony conversion the supplier inadvertently introduced strain
differences making the present rats more resistant to xenobiotic consumption._

In my opinion this tells a lot.

BTW: There are other researchers that replicated similar results on similar
experiments too:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11072395?dopt=Abstract](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11072395?dopt=Abstract)

So is better to see all the experiments to avoid bias.

~~~
bjourne
Why? What they're suggesting is that the genetic markup of the rats made the
difference (that's what strain differences mean), not the environment.

And your other linked experiment isn't at all similar and doesn't have similar
results. It's not even about opiate addiction.

Btw, Bruce Alexander is still alive and it wouldn't be that hard for him to
find the funding to replicate his experiment, with better controls, if he
wanted to.

------
ryanklee
The webcomic opens giving an option of three different navigation options --
left/right arrows, mouse, and touch.

With the exception of touch, which I don't have, these were all borked for me.
The scroll over-scrolled, and the arrow navigation moved forward _way_ too
many frames, both of which behaviors I had a lot of trouble interrupting or
escaping out of...

No, this is not another stereotyped HN comment meant to alert the author to a
criticism/bug in UX/UI/etc.

Instead, I actually thought that the borked controls were _part_ of the "Rat
Park" experiment:

How do users behave when presented with multiple controls and one or more of
these controls break (i.e., when they're up against the wall, where do they
turn)?

I fully expected to see discussion on this returning to the comment section.

Framing, titles -- they're a funny thing!

~~~
goldenkey
Worked fine for me on mobile. I'm in the park, cageboy! ;-)

------
xsmasher
Someone is a Led Zeppelin fan; the artwork references many of their album
covers.

------
noir_lord
The last line/panel left me stunned (not going to repeat it, read the comic).

So beautifully put.

------
dang
This was posted yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7734795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7734795),
and has had a significant discussion within the last year:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6391701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6391701).

------
mproud
I’ve come to the realization we owe so much when it comes to medicine and
psychology to our muroid rodents.

FWIW, this was posted on HN 8 months ago, and 7 months ago.
([https://hn.algolia.com/?q=rat+park#!/story/forever/0/rat%20p...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=rat+park#!/story/forever/0/rat%20park))

------
chimeracoder
A lot of the more successful drug treatment programs today treat addiction as
a symptom, not as the disease in and of itself. I'm glad that this model is
gaining popularity, because I think it is the correct one.

I was lucky to have the chance to study with Dr. Carl Hart in college. His
_Drugs and Behavior_ class was one of the best I've ever taken - an actually
scientific, medical look at drug use instead of haphazard generalizations that
we have come accustomed to reading even in otherwise reputable news sources
and even some academic settings.

A lot of Dr. Hart's research (at least at the time) involved methamphetamine -
he is one of only a handful of people across the country authorized to
administer methamphetamine in research settings (ie, for the purposes of a
study).

I commonly see methamphetamine ("meth") used as a scapegoat these days, with
references to it being a demon-drug, and how there is "no such thing as a
casual meth user"[0].

Unfortunately, this caricature of methamphetamine is inaccurate, managing
_both_ to overstate and understate its risks. Methamphetamine is certainly
habit-forming for a number of reasons, but one interesting fact to note is
that, according to the most recent NSDUH report[1], half of all people who
used methamphetamine in the last year don't meet DSM criteria for substance
abuse (which is an even lower threshold than substance dependence)[2].
(Ironically, I've seen these reports cited to show how "prevalent" meth
addiction is, pointing at the higher usage rates, but conveniently ignoring
the questions which evaluate actual substance abuse and dependence - why let
facts get in the way of a good scary narrative?)

Even if your goal is to reduce methamphetamine use across society, treating
all users as "addicts" when, medically speaking, they are not is like sending
all underage college students to Alcoholics Anonymous if they are caught with
alcohol in dry dorms - it's clearly not going to be successful.

Trying to treat drug use as a problem in and of itself isn't a model that is
backed by medical data or even our best understanding of psychology. We don't
use this model for alcohol (we distinguish between the drug use and the
atypical behaviour which defines pathological use[3]) or caffeine (in which we
completely ignore pathological use, even when it is clearly present).

[0] This is, incidentally, almost the exact same rhetoric during the crack
cocaine scare in the 80s, which is commonly accepted today as having been
exaggerated for political reasons at the time.

[1] The NSDUH is one of the three standard ways that drug usage rates and
turned are measured in the US. The raw numbers are usually less meaningful
than the relative numbers, for obvious reasons.

[2] The DSM is flawed in many ways, so I am not holding it up as a gold
standard by any means. Rather, it's an example of how a relatively strict (but
still scientific) definition of substance abuse fails to model actual behavior
appropriately.

[3] ie, the definition of "alcoholic" is generally understood to mean more
than "someone who drinks alcohol"

------
halinc
Anyone know why the artist included at least two Led Zeppelin references? The
font and shepherd in the first frame are alluding to Stairway to Heaven, and
the sign in the last frame has the 4 symbols from IV.

~~~
klodolph
Don't forget "In Through the Out Door" (front and back), "Physical Graffiti",
and "Presence". So, at least six panels have references to Led Zeppelin cover
art.

------
yiedyie
It would be interesting to replicate the experiment with this in mind:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7662464](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7662464)

------
frozenport
>>descended from wild Norway Rats, albino lab rats remain curious, gregarious
social creatures

Nope! I have watched well fed lab rats attack and eat each other. In the wild
they will often cannibalize their youth.

~~~
mcguire
That does make them an excellent model for humans.

~~~
stcredzero
Every dangerous, crazy, warlike species portrayed in Sci-Fi TV shows and
movies has been far outdone by actual historical humans. We're capable of jaw-
dropping personal and up close brutality, and until recently, the state
depended on the existence of many individuals who were highly capable of it.
Now we have tools like guns and bombs, so we can pretend we're civilized.

------
michaelochurch
I think there's a lot of value in the conclusion there. We emphasize
differences between ourselves (upstanding citizen vs. _drug addict_ ;
religious believer vs. "atheist" or "hedonist", normal person vs. "insane")
and moralize about that nonsense when, in fact, we're actually very similar.
The original, mid-20th-century superstition was that hedonistic/recreational
drug use (which _is_ risky) would take over society and that use had to be
criminalized. The reality is that, while almost everyone uses illegal drugs at
least once in life, most people make the right choices regardless of law
(enforcement is minuscule in the upper-middle and upper class) and, for those
who don't, compassionate medical treatment works far better than imprisonment.
People may be hedonistic in nature, but they're most often smart about it, so
what's wrong with that?

I was never addicted to a drug, but I had a long-term trolling habit
(hypergraphia) and I will concur with the cage metaphor. The dopamine hits
that come with pissing off hundreds of people I'd never met became my own
personal drug, and made it difficult to enjoy the rest of life. Addiction
eventually _becomes_ the cage, and it gets smaller and tighter over time.

The depressing realization that I come away from this with, however, is that
modern life is mostly cages and very few parks. Most corporate jobs are cages
with night and weekend release, and so is the way we've designed school
systems and institutional life in general. We've even conditioned people into
believing in supernatural authoritarianism (which is not to invalidate all of
religion; I'm just attacking the politicized, authoritarian strain that exists
in the US) because they're so imprisoned that the only solution they can
envision is a supernatural person that almost certainly does not exist in that
form.

People are so used to living in cages, and have so many weird addictions
(whether to drugs including alcohol, to Internet trolling as I discussed, to
authoritarian religion, or to the toxic drama of office politics) that de-
caging humanity would require massive social change (including, for an obvious
line item, basic income).

~~~
goldenkey
I can relate. Quitting my job has freed me for true personal growth and
happiness. That was until I got unjustly charged by corrupt cops and have to
do community service. It seems nonstarter where you run in this life, there's
a cage waiting for you in one form or another. Sigh

