Group CC
were kept in laboratory cages until the age of 80 days, i.e. 58 days.
Group PP
were housed in Rat Park: an area 200 times larger than a laboratory
cage, and provided with food, balls, and wheels for play, and plenty of space
to mate.
Group CP
were initially located in laboratory cages and then transferred to Rat Park at
65 days old (i.e. 43 days later).
Group PC
started off in Rat Park and then moved to laboratory cages at 65 days old.
Each group
had a choice of two drinking dispensers. One dispenser contained sweetened
morphine, and the other plain tap water.
So, what
happened? What did the rats in each group drink?
The caged
rats (Groups CC and PC) took to the sweetened morphine immediately, drinking it
nineteen times more often than those in the other two groups (Groups PP and PC).
The rats in these other two groups (PP and PC) did try the water with morphine
in it occasionally but showed a distinct preference for the tap water.
The
difference between the groups was not the choices they had. It was not their
cultural background. It was not their family history.
The
difference was that caged rats opted for the sweetened morphine at a significantly
higher degree than those not caged.
Are We
Human Rats?
A question
quickly forms when we learn of this research. Might the same be going on in
human society? Is drug addiction a symptom of being caged in?
Research indicates
a correlation. Research reported in May 2025 noted that: ‘Urban
environmental risk factors of economic disparity, marginalization and barriers
in accessing healthcare and negative individual characteristics of low
education, low income and comorbid diagnosis of mental illness significantly
increased risk of drug use.’1
In 2023
(the year of most recent data) 316 million people worldwide (6% of the
population aged 15-64) had used drugs in the previous year. The incidence of
drug use had increased over the previous decade, outstripping the increase in
population (indicating that per capita use had swelled), with the
synthetic drug market having expanded rapidly.
As an
example of this increase, consider the production of cocaine. In 2014 the
global production of this drug was 869 tonnes, by 2023 the production of
cocaine had more than quadrupled to 3,708 tonnes.
Some
researchers and psychologists go further than simply urbanisation, suggesting
that civilisation itself is a factor in addiction. And not just drug addiction,
but most addictions; gambling, sex, alcohol, shopping and consumption, and
technology to name a few. The eco-psychologist, Chellis Glendinning, writes of
this brilliantly in her 1994 book My Name Is Chellis & I’m in Recovery from
Western Civilization.2
For
Glendinning and others, the cage we are in may not be a physical one, we may
not be able to see it or touch it. But, it is there, nevertheless. And, like
the rats in cages, we opt for addictive substances or experiences.
It is a
sobering thought, isn’t it? Our addictions may be a natural (albeit unhealthily
so) response to being caged in.
As we
know, too, the manufacture, transport, and trafficking of illicit drugs have an
association with violence. Next weeks blog (Part 2) will consider whether (as
with drugs) there is a correlation between violence and being caged in.
Notes:
1. https://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/fulltext/2025/05000/drug_addiction_and_impact_of_urbanization__a.13.aspx Accessed 7 April 2026
2. Chellis
Glendinning, My Name Is Chellis & I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization,
Shambhala Publications, Boston, Massachusetts, 1994.
