Lo Hudson
Lo Hudson
Sep 2, 2018 · 1 min read

Great write up and I think I agree. A story about “Rat Park” came to mind as I was reading.

It was a study about addiction wherein some researchers tested a rat by doing the following: put a rat in a cage, place some cocaine in the rat’s water bottle, and watch. The test was this: if they keep the rat in a cage with nothing to do but drink the water, the rat would continue his addiction. But when they did this to a rat that had what they were calling a “rat park”, with lots of things to do *other than* drink the water, the rats did wonderfully.

And I think having read that story some time ago has made me open to the ideas you’re proposing here. Obviously the problem is the drug. But perhaps also it’s two fold in some cases: the drug and the lives culture we live in. Our culture does exactly as you describe: problems only exist at the individual level and so we blame people for their situations. But the facts suggest otherwise. We have a culture that worships things that are bad for us, a culture which is built on getting people “hooked” on *everything*, alcohol and other drugs being the most deadly but certainly so is an addiction to money or work.

We need a better Rat Park.

    Lo Hudson

    Written by

    Lo Hudson

    To live, to die.