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The Origins of Drug Addiction

Many psychological studies, including twin case studies, have been used to research the origins of drug addiction. By using twin studies, psychologists and researchers such as Guze et al (1967) and Cotton (1979), have been able to determine the origins of drug addiction and concluded what factors can lead to someone becoming addicted to drugs. .
             It has been shown that drug abuse runs in families. Psychologists will tend to use twin studies for analyzing the origins of addictive behaviors. Monozygotic twins are identical twins that hold exact copies of each other's genes and dizygotic twins don't look alike but share 50% of their genes. Using twins, researchers can also determine whether these genetic factors also influence the earlier stages of the addictive process and whether they are genetic influences specific to each psychoactive substance5. However, it was concluded that the experiment's results on the twins' possibility of addiction could be manipulated by the twins' gender. So up to date there are two case studies that can be considered accurate when it comes to their results: Pedersen (1981)6, and Tsuang et al. (1996)6. .
             The obsessive addiction of prescription medication such as tranquilizers and sleeping pills has been said to be genetically provoked. (Pedersen, 1981)7 While these drugs are considered to be pharmacologically similar, some evidence for drug specificity was reported. The experiment's results showed that the heritability estimate of tranquilizers was of 0.28 but there didn't seem to be any heritability for the sleeping pills. It was estimated that the magnitude of genetic and environmental influence was estimated on lifetime abuse of the drug. (Pedersen, 1981)7. .
             The state of Minnesota has been known for the use of its twins for psychological research studies to be able to gather concrete findings for experiments. In 1991, researcher Pickens took a sample of 392 twins (188 pairs) who were then interviewed to evaluate drug and alcohol use and dependence and related psychiatric circumstances.


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