To determine the effect of housing conditions on morphine self-administration, rats isolated in standard laboratory cages and rats living socially in a large open box (8.8 m2) were given morphine in solution (0.5 mg/ml) as their only source of fluid for 57 days. They were then exposed to a series of 3-day cycles previously shown by Nichols et al. (1956) to increase self-administration of morphine in caged rats. On morphine/water choice days late in the period of forced consumption, between the Nichols cycles, and during a subsequent period of abstinence, the isolated rats drank significantly more morphine solution than the social rats, and the females drank significantly more morphine solution than the males. During the four choice days in the Nichols Cycle Period the isolated rats increased their consumption, but the socially housed animals decreased theirs.

No abstract

To determine whether opiate consumption is affected by laboratory housing, individually caged and colony rats were given a choice between water and progressively more palatable morphine-sucrose solutions. The isolated rats drank significantly more of the opiate solution, and females drank significantly more than males. In the experimental phase during which morphine-sucrose solution consumption was greatest, the isolated females drank five times as much, and the isolated males sixteen times as much morphine (mg/kg) as the colony females and males respectively.

Reviews the 2 views of addiction to heroin and other opiate drugs: The exposure orientation (including metabolic and conditioning theories) views addiction as a condition engendered by prior opiate use; the adaptive orientation depicts it as a continuing attempt to reduce distress (be it social, cognitive, or genetic) that existed before opiate use began. Recent data indicate that the exposure orientation may have outlived its usefulness because it implies that addiction is interminable since each dose strengthens the habit. The strongest evidence against the exposure view has come from the low rate of Vietnam veterans who relapsed into addiction after detoxification. The authors recommend a major shift of emphasis toward the adaptive orientation, which would benefit science, psychotherapy, and public policy. However, they also discuss 4 problems of the adaptive orientation (and their resolutions): explanation of the self-destructive nature of addiction; the plethora of retrospective, rather than experimental, evidence; the hesitancy of psychologists to reject the long-standing exposure hypothesis; and the lack of large-scale success in using this psychotherapeutic view to cure addicts. (128 ref)

It is argued that both smokers and non-smokers should support the right of smokers to indulge in their habit. The control of the state over its citizens is growing. A review of the history of legal attempts to restrict drugs and current anti-smoking movements suggests that the use of tobacco may, in the future, become as illegal as the use of non-medical opiates is today. The social costs of seeking the worthwhile goal of reduced smoking by legal means are discussed, along with alternatives..