Socio-Cultural Perceptions of Addiction and Population Health

                                                Stigma and Addiction      In 1970, American psychologist Bruce Alexander did an experiment known as "Rat Park". This experiment conducted by Dr. Alexander proved that stigma is very dangerous in addiction treatment. The normal responds when anyone is being stigmatized is to withdraw, it is human nature to go where you are loved and appreciated. In the Rat Park experiments "  which showed that animals housed in enriched environments with access to other rats self-administered morphine much less frequently than those housed in isolation"  (Volkow, 2020). When there is stigma, people isolates. There are no positive benefit of stigma. In Dr. Amarendran's lecture on stigma in substance use disorder treatment, He made good point on how stigma  Limits access to care, stigma leads to patients be...