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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
Researchers persuade simians to get themselves stoned -- and say it helps prove that dope is addictive.
Nov 29, 2000 | The National Institute on Drug Abuse has four bakehead monkeys, and the researchers who enabled them are just as thrilled as they can be. The fact that, after long toil, they have succeeded in the unprecedented feat of inducing these monkeys to introduce THC into the temples of their bodies proves that marijuana is like "other abusable, addicting substances," according to NIDA director Dr. Alan I. Leshner.
This startling breakthrough is documented in a study in the November issue of Nature Neuroscience, a spinoff of the prestigious scientific journal Nature. Dr. Stephen Goldberg, one of the study's authors, is quoted in a NIDA press release explaining that "this finding suggests that marijuana has as much potential for abuse as other drugs of abuse, such as cocaine and heroin."
Sure it does, Dr. Goldberg.
But wait! Abuse isn't scary enough: Let's lurch one step further into zealotry by confusing abuse with addiction. (What's the difference? Let's clarify with an example. Have you ever abused cheesecake? I think you have. But do you go through torment on a day when you can't get cheesecake? Have you repurposed your life toward getting and consuming cheesecake? Do you ever wake up in a doorway with graham crust crumbs on your face and no idea where you've been? No? Thank God -- you're not addicted. Yet.)
Major newspapers quickly picked up on the tale of the four simian dope fiends. The New York Times headlined it "Marijuana Seen as Addictive in Monkeys." In the first paragraph we read that "the result emphasizes the idea that people can become addicted to marijuana and provides a way to test therapies." And, reported the BBC, "cannabis may be as addictive as hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine."
(Let me reveal my hidden agenda: I'm going to make fun of this. But here's the diabolical part -- I'll do it by actually reading the study.)
The monkeys in question are squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus); they're quite small (and relatively cheap, if you are running a lab), have long prehensile tails and weigh just a pound or two. In the wild their custom is to leap about the branches of Central and South American forests at high speed, chittering like crazy.
Squirrel monkeys are easily bored. (No squirrel monkey would have read this far, for instance. A squirrel monkey would have skimmed the headline, shrieked in derision and started biting the keyboard by now.)
Thus, in an essay posted on a Web site for primate lovers, one woman who keeps a squirrel monkey as a pet -- the realization of her lifelong dream -- breaks into capital letters to warn that "squirrel monkeys are EXTREMELY HYPER!" (She has had Chippy's canine teeth removed, because he also bites.)
Some years ago, for an animal behavior class, it was my task to observe a small troop of squirrel monkeys at the Washington Park Zoo in Portland, Ore. Formerly they had been kept in a small cage and had been bored out of their tiny gourds, bouncing off the walls like ping-pong balls with teeth. Now they had the unusual privilege of roaming free during daylight hours, but they loathed the Oregon weather and chose to stay inside, still bored.
