Paul Saladino· MD
all this research was using rats who were isolated in laboratory cages under fluorescent light 24 hours 24 7 totally unnatural environment and these rats were desperate um so he thought well maybe that's why they're so eager to get the drugs because their lives suck let's create an environment where the rats are comfortable and see what they do then so he he created what he called rat park um so it was a big enclosure lots of rats together all different ages male and female he replicated a sort of natural rat social situation lots of toys and balls and wheels to run on and you know the lights would get dark at night and come back on in the morning so they had sort of a natural light cycle and then he put the same uh drugs in you know next to the water bottle another bottle that had cocaine or heroin in it and he observed the behavior of the rats and what happened was the rats would come over they would try the bottle with the drugs in it once and then they wouldn't do it again they would just take the regular water after that they weren't interested in that compulsive access to to the altered state of consciousness because their lives were fine