Addicts visually prefer drugs to porn

[MrGosh]

Do you think this is true?

ABSTINENT addicts would rather look at images involving their drug of choice than pornographic images, pictures of babies or other conventionally pleasing imagery, new research has found.

"The pleasant images were more pleasant to them and more arousing than the cocaine images," Dr Rita Goldstein of the Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, the principal investigator on the study, told Reuters Health.

"But still they don't choose those pleasant images more often."

The experiment consisted of 20 cocaine-addicts and 20 controls, who chose a card from one of four decks, each of which contained a preponderance of one type of image: cocaine-related images (showing the drug itself or people using it); pleasant images; unpleasant, aversive images such as mutilated bodies; or neutral images.

The study participants didn't know that each deck contained more of a particular type of image. In the second task, they chose between two images taken from the four decks and placed side by side.

The cocaine-addicted study participants chose the cocaine-related images more often than the controls, who found such images aversive. But when asked to rate how pleasant an image was, the cocaine addicts rated the pleasant images more highly than the control group did.

And the more heavily a person had used cocaine in the last 30 days, the stronger his or her preference for the cocaine-related pictures. "That's an objective measure to tap into severity of use," Goldstein said.

The fact that this preference was confirmed scientifically suggests that such images offer a useful way to study and perhaps even treat addiction.

[OliX]

Is this where research money goes?

[Toe Cutter]

Is this where research money goes?

No shit! How can I start doing "research". In the right hands studies like that could be the time of your life.

[Morning Glory]

I don't believe it. If that was the case how do you explain how there is a billion dollar pornography industry, but zero market for visuals of people doing drugs (unless you count cheech and chong)? Both of them feature an activity that is more pleasurable outside of simulation, but also harder and potentially risky/illegal to obtain.

By the same rational that the average person would rather watch porn than hire a prostitute, it would seem to be the case that they would rather watch simulated drug use than do it themselves. Of course this logic is flawed, because there is nothing pleasurable about watching drug use.

Drug addicts respond to images of drugs because it makes them think of the drugs that they crave, it has nothing to do with a craving for the images themselves. In fact if you are craving some drugs and you don't have any, the last thing you probably want to do is watch other people doing them. Porn is much more entertaining to watch, and it's probably better to take your mind off that drug you are craving.

[Ajax Knucklebones]

Porn...It does the body good. I'm not addicted to it, so I can say that. If I was then I guess I'd be saying, "Porn bad"...As I was sneaking peeks at it anyway.

[DoctorZ]

than pornographic images, pictures of babies

I read this totally, totally, extremely wrong. O.o