Trent Smith: UCLA International Institute

The economic theory of “rational addiction” posits that drug addiction can usefully be viewed as the outcome of an informed decision undertaken on the part of the consumer. I employ a complementary approach to developing a behavioral theory of addiction by identifying circumstances under which addiction-like behavior is the solution to an adaptive problem faced by humans in the pre-industrial world. The empirical validity of this approach is then demonstrated with an in-depth review and synthesis of the biomedical literature concerning the action of opiates in the mammalian brain and their effects on behavior. There is strong evidence that addiction is the manifestation of a mismatch between behavioral algorithms encoded in the human genome and the expanded menu of choices–generated for example, by advances in drug delivery technology–of consumers in the modern world. Specific implications for economic theory and public policy will be discussed.
http://www.bec.ucla.edu/papers/Smith_11-10-03.pdf