Matters of Mood

Literature abounds with testimonials by narcotics addicts--De Quincey, Coleridge, Baudelaire, Cocteau--to the beauties of the neverland to which their favorite dope has transported them. Most medical textbooks have copied each other's statements that the effect of narcotics is uniformly pleasant. But most people who try a couple of shots out of curiosity find the effects (including nausea and vomiting) so unpleasant that they stop right there. Only a few persist and become slaves to the drugs. Why the difference? Three researchers at Harvard Medical School suspected that to become an addict, an individual needs not only persistence but a basic predisposition. Drs. John M. von Felsinger, Louis Lasagna and Henry K. Beecher ran careful tests with 20 young men. The results, reported in the A.M.A. Journal, support their theory:

P: Typical responses to amphetamine, a stimulant and not a narcotic, are alertness and a sense of wellbeing; to pentobarbital, well-being and drowsiness; to the narcotics heroin and morphine, disquiet and drowsiness. Anybody who reacts atypically to one, e.g., feeling sleepy after amphetamine, is likely to have unusual reactions to all the others.

P: Subjects who showed typical reactions were those rated "well adjusted," had few emotional or sex problems. The atypical reactors were relatively aimless, drifting types; they had suffered from demanding fathers and overprotective mothers (some had married young to find a mother-substitute), and bristled with anxiety and hostility. They were also the heaviest drinkers.

P: Those who found heroin or morphine pleasant were immature, impulsive, self-centered, anxious and hostile, and given to daydreaming or fantastic ambitions.

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