It's not the morphine, it's the size of the cage: Rat Park experiment upturns conventional wisdom

[Warpy]

67. This is borne out in clinical practice in hospitals, too

I could theoretically give the whole candy store of opiates and benzos to any patient. As it was, I did around the clock medication for the first 48 hours after surgery and then let the patient decide. Even the patients who scared us by going "Whee!" when the drugs hit bottom didn't want to see the stuff for the rest of their lives after the first three days, even when they were still in significant pain, they just wanted their brains to go back to normal.

A study was done in Boston back in the 80s that followed patients who'd been on heavy opiates in the hospital. The study was huge, some 10,800+ patients. Guess how many new addictions they found.

C'mon. Guess.

They found four new addictions. Four. Out of nearly 11,000 people.

Those are statistics we can live with. People tend to use the stuff when they need to, but then they just want to be able to think straight. Few will turn into addicts.

I always suspected the rat study was bogus. For one thing, people aren't rats. Well, most of 'em. For the other, I just wasn't seeing it in the hospitals.