Orgy using cocaine scheduled at Texas A & M

  Cocaine party candidate for Texas A & M study
  (Courtesy - Wikimedia Commons, Janet Stevens)

University researchers have scheduled a cocaine study in what could potentially be the longest line in recorded history comprised of hormone-flooded college students eager to sign on as the guinea pigs. The college will likely need to prepare for the influx of transfer students preparing to run, jump, swim, fly, and hitchhike here from across the globe as they demand a fair shot at signing up for the study.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, faculty at Texas A & M University didn't have eager college students in mind as the study's research subjects. It was lab rats.

Texas A & M was given a 1.4 million dollar grant  for a five-year study of cocaine's affects on behavior in rats. Professor Barry Setlow of the psychology department hopes the research will provide a better understanding of drug relapses, addiction, and treatment. If this research can in any way contribute to a better understanding of addiction, we need it because prescription drug abuse is at epidemic proportions. Many different treatment philosophies are out there, all claiming to have the "hook" on successfully treating drug addiction, but typically long term success for staying clean is rather dismal. About 5% make it to 5 years clean, and then only 5% of those make it to 10 years clean, and so on.

As for the rats? Well, studies like this have been done in the past, showing sure enough, cocaine is addictive alright, while the animals break-dance over the buttons, and levers controlling the cocaine delivery system, to the exclusion of feeding themselves. This is pretty near as close to what humans do when they get their noses close to a pile of cocaine powder, or a lip-lock on a crack cocaine pipe.

Numerous drug studies have been done in the past, and researchers are forever getting closer to assembling addiction's puzzle. As research continues, scientists move toward discovering the physiological, as well as psychological roots of addiction, including genetic links. Various drugs are in use today combating addiction, and one of them, naltrexone, when taken as a maintenance drug, stops an addict from feeling the affects of opioid drugs. It is also used in a procedure called the Waismann Method, or rapid opiate detox. During an overdose of narcotics, an injection of naltrexone has brought people back from the brink of death. Still other drugs combat OCD, or obessive-compulsive disorder, a psychological condition characteristic of what an addict does. And that is obsessive/compulsive use of drugs.

The method likely to work best in treating addiction, however, is one encompassing an holistic approach. The human brain is extremely complicated, as is our physiology. No singular approach to the treatment of addiction works very well unless the whole person is taken into account. Our upbringing, the environment, and genetics play significant roles in the condition. Treating the person from those perspectives will likely see richer results.

Most of us know that this kind of research is necessary, but more of it needs to be done. The people in America who have a drug problem, about 20+ million and ticking, are surely worth saving. And it is growing worse with the prescription drug abuse epidemic now ravaging an additional 2500 teens per day who may eventually develop into full blown addicts if uncontested. Are these people worth the cost of increased spending on research, and inclusion in any national health-care reform plan being hammered out? Of course they are.

With 17,500 new teens getting high for the first time on prescription drugs each week, the number continues to add to the burden already felt by Americans and businesses across the land to the tune of half a trillion dollars per year. The psychological costs are more staggering.

Drug studies using monkeys, and rats are common. What your position on that is with respect to the ethics involved is another matter. The information researchers obtain from these studies has certainly helped us substantially in the quality, and length of our lives. Now, if we could only figure out a way to help people get out of these cages, and mazes where the drug pumping levers and buttons are, we’d be all set.

If you, or anyone you know has a drug problem, you can find information on this page and my other articles to assist you. Don't wait any longer to seek help, the drama isn't worth it.

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 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009

Texas A & M researcher studying cocaine

*Recovery Humor

Drinking buddies of an alcoholic who died are at his funeral. As 2 of his friends pass by the casket, one remarks to the other, "Sam looks pretty good in death." "He ought to," rejoinded the other, "He hasn't had a drink in 3 days!" Author unknown