Excerpted from Dr. Hyla Cass’ book: The Addicted Brain and How to Break Free

The Biochemical Roots Of Addiction

Some of us remember the 1936 film, Reefer Madness. It was intentionally created to be dramatic to capture the audience’s attention as it states in the opening. That’s right. There was a new drug that was slated to destroy the youth.  When the drug ”Marijuana” was used, people experienced laughter, an inability to direct thoughts, errors in time and space and emotional disturbances ending in violence and incurable insanity. Most marijuana users have made reference to the movie as the laughable benchmark of propaganda. Pete Nielsen, California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals (CCAPP) Chief Executive Officer, and I were talking about how times have changed, and that maybe now, life is imitating art as he put it.

There’s a saying about a frog in a kettle: If you throw him into boiling water he’ll reflexively jump out. But, if you put him in warm water and let it heat slowly to a boil, he’ll get cooked. The point is that by the time he recognizes danger, it’s too late to extricate himself.

There was an article in the Los Angeles Times a few months ago about addiction. This is not uncommon, but this particular article never mentioned the word addiction. Instead it talked about the new drug, Molly, as a lifestyle choice for those that live in the fast lane. It was described as a byproduct of the Generation of Me coming of age.