Study Says Cocaine Addicts Prefer Money in Hand to Drugs of Greater Value Later

When cocaine addicts were asked to choose between money in hand or cocaine of greater value at a later time, they always preferred the money, says a new study.

Warren K. Bickel, professor in the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, director of the Advanced Recovery Research Center, and professor of psychology in the College of Science at Virginia Tech, said "preference was almost exclusively for the money now".

Drug Abuse | Drug Addiction | Substance Abuse - Overview
The use of Drugs for reasons other than its prescribed recommendation, is known as Drug abuse or substance abuse. Drug abuse or substance abuse is initiated by various biological and social factors.

Cocaine addicts have always been portrayed as people who will do anything to get their drug, but research led by Bickel suggests cocaine is strongly valued only when it is immediately available.

"When it is available later, it is not worth very much," he said.

The finding is good news for developing drug treatment programs based on incentives for delaying drug use, he said.

Accident and Trauma Care - Golden Hour - Taking Care - Don’t
Accident and trauma care is an important public health challenge that requires immediate attention. Injury (trauma) is the leading cause of death for all age groups under the age of 44.

"In real life, important choices for those with addiction depend on making decisions across commodities, such as cigarettes now or money later," said Bickel.

"In the money now-cocaine later choices, participants soon became indifferent to future cocaine amounts, preferring immediate money even when the value of the future cocaine was significantly greater.

Drug Abuse Screening Test
Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST) is a screening test to find out if you need professional help with ‘Drug Abuse’ problem. This is only an anonymous self test.

"That is, cocaine is discounted more steeply than money," Bickel stated.

However, when the immediate reward was the drug and the future reward was money, the decline was less steep.

"It took longer for the future money to lose favour compared to a lesser value of cocaine," Bickel added.

Source-ANI