The term "addiction" is one most people take to be a scientifically definable one. A term whose meaning is understood and accurate enough to base policy on. Actually it is far from it. Scientists and doctors disagree widely on what it means. If the study cited below is true then we soon should be hearing about why we must prohibit chocolate and BBQ, not to mention bacon-egg-cheese sandwiches, cinnamon buns, pizza, cheeseburgers, fried chicken, lasagna, BBQ'd ribs, ice cream, brownies, and chocolate cake. How exactly, is heroin different from fried chicken? Given pure substances (no antibiotics or hormones in the chicken, no plaster dust or rat poison in the heroin) neither cause harm to the body. Consumed in moderation there seems to be no relevant difference.                                  Lately drug warriors have been using these brain scans and the changes in the "color" of drug users brains to support their case for prohibition. Well, if these scans mean anything  then it's not really the drugs themselves that cause "addiction" , but the person's yearning for the pleasure offered.
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Study: Chocolate, BBQ addiction may be real
Leading addiction experts worked on the report
Wednesday, April 21, 2004 Posted: 10:47 AM EDT (1447 GMT)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- People who say they are addicted to chocolate or
pizza may not be exaggerating, U.S.-based scientists said Tuesday.

A brain scan study of normal, hungry people showed their brains lit up when
they saw and smelled their favorite foods in much the same way as the brains
of cocaine addicts when they think about their next snort.

"Food presentation significantly increased metabolism in the whole brain (by
24 percent) and these changes were largest in superior temporal, anterior
insula, and orbitofrontal cortices," they wrote.

These areas are associated with addiction.

An estimated 30 percent of Americans are obese, meaning they have a body
mass index of more than 30. This ratio of height to weight usually works out
to being about 30 pounds overweight for a woman and 35 to 40 pounds
overweight for a man.

Wang and colleagues studied 12 men and women with an average age of 28. The
volunteers fasted for just under a day and then underwent positron emission
tomography, or PET scans, which measure brain metabolism.

They were asked to describe their favorite foods and how they like to eat
them while they were presented with some of those foods.

"A cotton swab impregnated with the food was placed in their tongues so they
could taste it," the researchers wrote.

"The favorite food items most frequently selected by the subjects were
bacon-egg-cheese sandwich, cinnamon bun, pizza, hamburger with cheese, fried
chicken, lasagna, Bar-Be-Que rib, ice cream, brownie, and chocolate cake."

Several leading addiction experts worked on the report including Dr. Nora
Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

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Associated links: http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/04/21/cravings.reut/index.html
 
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