Teens and Cocaine Addiction
Cocaine is highly addictive, and a study
has been done to see if adolescents are more prone to become addicted to
cocaine. This study that was performed lasted for two years, and the test
subjects were male rats that were prepubescent, adolescents, and adults. Over
these two years scientist ran a series four experiments to see how cocaine
affected these different stages in life. These four experiments studied age differences
in acquisition of self-administration, age differences in escalation of cocaine
self-administration, age differences in cocaine consumption as a function of
price, and age difference in levels of cocaine and its metabolites. The first
experiment resulted in adolescents having a greater intake of cocaine, and they
acquire it more quickly than adults and prepubertal adolescents. The second
experiment proved that adolescents upped their intake while the adults never
changed. The third experiment showed that consumption decreased in both
adolescents and adults as a function of price, but it also showed that
adolescents will work harder to get the drug than adults will. However, it was
worse for adults than it was for the adolescents. The final experiment was the
only experiment where they did not find a difference between adolescents and
adults. There were no differences found in the amount of metabolites in the
brain. They were the same for adults and adolescents. Over all this study
proved that adolescents are at a greater risk for getting addicted to cocaine
than adults are. Since we know this, people should inform adolescents that they
are more prone to addiction at an earlier age. The only issue I saw with this
study is with the subjects. The scientists only used male rats for the study,
and contributing female rats to the study might have made a difference or shown
a different outcome.
Abstract
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