We can never understand addiction if we look for its sources exclusively in the actions of chemicals, no matter how powerful they are. “Addiction is a human problem that resides in people, not in the drug or in the drug’s capacity to produce physical effects,” writes Lance Dodes, a psychiatrist at the Harvard Medical School Division on Addictions.4 It is true that some people will become hooked on substances after only a few times of using, with potentially tragic consequences, but to understand why, we have to know what about those individuals makes them vulnerable to addiction. Mere exposure
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