In the News (from BBC News): “Taking cocaine can change the structure of the brain within hours in what could be the first steps of drug addiction, according to US researchers.

“Animal tests, reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, showed new structures linked to learning and memory began to grow soon after the drug was taken. …

“The place or environment that drugs are taken plays an important role in addiction.

In the experiments, the mice were allowed to explore freely two very different chambers – each with a different smell and surface texture.

“Once they had picked a favourite they were injected with cocaine in the other chamber. A type of laser microscopy was used to look inside the brains of living mice to hunt for the dendritic spines. More new spines were produced when the mice were injected with cocaine than with water, suggesting new memories being formed around drug use. The difference could be detected two hours after the first dose. …

“’This gives us a possible mechanism for how drug use fuels further drug-seeking behaviour.

“‘These drug-induced changes in the brain may explain how drug-related cues come to dominate decision making in a human drug user.’”

“Commenting on the research, Dr Gerome Breen, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, told the BBC: ‘Dendritic spine development is particularly important in learning and memory. This study gives us a solid understanding of how addiction occurs – it shows us how addiction is learned by the brain.’”

My Comment: Changes in the structure of the brain lead to a complete change of personality; dependence on fulfillment from narcotics makes a person weak-willed and utterly unfit to work on himself, on spiritual evolution, and removes him from society. He is useful for the old, capitalist system as a vegetable who needs only a new dose, but for a new, altruistic social structure, he is completely unsuitable.
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