65. Addiction, Rats and Nazi Germany with Professor Bruce Alexander

This week’s episode features Professor Bruce Alexander, a psychologist and professor emeritus from Vancouver, BC, Canada, author of two books about addiction: Peaceful Measures: Canada's Way Out of the War on Drugs and The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit.

Professor Alexander conducted a series of experiments into drug addiction known as the Rat Park experiments. Which brought into light the true complexity of addiction and the influence of our environment on how we use drugs and how they affect us. Listen to this episode to find out why the “demon drug myth” is extremely out of date with the scientific world and what we can do to debunk it.

Skin poppers

Heroin

Morphine

Demon drug myth

Ian Kershaw

Rat park

How permanent was Vietnam drug addiction