The Dark Side of Science: The Horrific Monkey Drug Experiment 1969 (Short Documentary) 

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If you were trapped in a room barely bigger than yourself, what would you do? Drink water and wait? Or take drugs and feel like you weren't trapped.

Hard to not become a drug addict when your life is spent confined to a small cage and connected to a metal harness and arm.

I've been through opioid withdrawals and alcohol withdrawals(dt). I empathize with those animals. That is horrific torture.

Another study was done with rats wherein some rats were kept in a typical cage and only their basic needs were met (food, water, shelter) and the rats were kept in individual isolation. The other set of rats lived communally in a "rat utopia" that provided many forms of mental and physical stimulation. Both sets of rats had open access to a drug (I can't remember which, but I want to say it was cocaine). The first set of rats became completely addicted and used the drug until they died while the second set tried the drug to discover what it was, but ignored it thereafter. Rats, like humans, are social animals. Just having their basic physical needs met is not enough for them to thrive. But if their basic physical needs are met and they are stimulated and accepted as part of a community, they thrive and have no need for diversions such as drugs. EDIT: I should not have used the words "rat utopia," as this makes it seem like I was referring to the infamous Rat Utopia experiment. I am not. I should have said that set of rats had all of their basic needs met not just physically, but socially and emotionally as well.

I think even with the animal cruelty aside, its a fairly rubbish experiment in terms of how it was conducted as all it really showed was that an animal addicted to a substance will continue to take it and not necessarily finding a 'cause' along the way. Considering this was the late 60's it shouldn't have been too hard to find a lot of people engaged in some kind of drug use in the wild, then just do a deeper study on them.

"Hey, so you're stuck in a nightmare with tubes to your heart. Wanna get fucked up or just sit there?" Gee who could have seen this outcome

These kinds of tests say more about those who administer them, than the test subjects themselves. Absolutely shameful!

As an ex heroin addict I chose dope over everything. Family, friends and freedom. I've been clean since 2016 and now have a wife, son and my own house but the effects still linger. Some nights I wake up soaking wet after dreaming about sticking myself with the needle and my brain no longer produces dopamine so I'm dealing with depression and other shit but it gets better everyday. If anyone out there is struggling just know it gets better once you decide you want to quit. It took me hitting rock bottom and 2 years behind bars for me to quit. I never looked back though and I'm thankful for the 2nd chance. I know to many people that will never get that opportunity.

Very odd to make someone addicted you have to "tempt" them with a raisin. Technically that could be peer pressure but maybe the monkey just wanted a raisin, not a hallucinogenic drug. Very grim study and needn't have been done.

Imagine people went to school to get a PhD and then spent time and money to get monkeys addicted to dope. They thought this was a valid and ethical usage of their skills and talents. Sad many such cases

Just from the title, I could tell this was going to be a cruel and pointless experiment. Especially considering it would be incredibly easy to do an observation study with humans who already are addicted by interviewing them and their loved ones and from rehabilitation centers.

And I want to add that literally no useful conclusions were drawn from this study. All the information we know about addiction nowadays is derived mostly from human experience, with a few rat experiments here and there, but this study proved absolutely nothing and only indicated what we already knew at that point. It seems the scientists involved got carried away and did it, not because it would advance science, but merely because they could. The experiment was poorly conceived as well, and had a high chance of giving inconclusive results. As well, the studies did not include ANY information about WHY people get addicted; its purpose was to study ALREADY ADDICTED monkeys, and in that case, why not just use humans? It's not like there was a paucity of humans with addiction. The study also was highly inconclusive because, well, if you were trapped in a cage, would YOU just wanna drink water and wait, or would you wanna take drugs that make you feel better and less trapped? It seems to me that the researchers were making a situation where taking drugs seems to be the only logical choice, making drugs available, then doing surprised pikachu face when the monkeys end up addicted. There was no study about how much addicts will ignore negative consequences, no study about WHY addicts become addicts, no study about environmental factors... just getting monkeys hooked so they could prove the obvious, which is that addictive drugs are addictive. Really a bullshit study, and this makes it more cruel because the animal suffering was completely unnecessary.

The 60’s and 70’s were truly the time where scientists just did whatever the hecc

In addition to other problems with the experiment's structure, the testing of so many different substances meant that only a handful of animals could be used in any one test. Such a low number of trials all but ensures that outliers have an outsize impact on the results, and makes it easy to completely overlook other less-likely outcomes. It's important that good science be repeatable, and that requires more than just a few test subjects. So the test only showed the obvious, and didn't even do that with convincing certainty. Not only was the Helsinki Protocol ignored, but the suffering of the test subjects, and many of their deaths, were entirely in vain.

People’s view on addiction is all out of whack. My mom overdosed and passed away April 28th 2022, and all I can think about is how happy I am I expressed my unconditional love to her every time I saw her. I let her know I didn’t care what she did, regardless of anything I love her. Don’t shun addicts show them there’s fun and joy elsewhere. Often times we put ourselves in that cage ourselves but it’d be nice if other people were the tiniest bit more courageous to help and open the cage. Love you mom. Sorry we couldn’t get that cage all the way open, but I know you’re not fighting anymore.

So if you ever think your idea is bad, remember that once, THREE people got together and decided that giving monkeys a drug button would be a wonderful idea.

Who could blame a poor monkey for seeking oblivion in these circumstances 😭😭😭

Addictive drugs are addictive. What an experiment!

"both switches would be swapped around at random intervals" So assuming the monkeys could tell the switches apart, they would still never know for sure. The people who designed this test are beyond imagination. edit They also had indicative raisins taped to the switch?!

I feel like the study would have been more accurate AND more ethical if they had the monkeys all in the same cage with comfortable living conditions because it would more closely simulate their real environment. Any living creature would want to be blitzed out of their mind if they were locked up all alone in a tiny cage for weeks.

I really believe some of these scientists who did these things were well aware of the uselessness and cruelty of such experiments and did it only to satisfy their own cruel and demented enjoyments and urges. This gave them the opportunity, the funding, the immunity and supposed justification (to soothe what little a little bit of a conscience that they had along with excuse and justification to give peers, family, general public, etc. who were better people and knew better).

I was being injected with morphine against my will before bed time everyday for a week. That's when I was recovering after a surgery on my broken leg. Didn't have that much pain as it was healing well, but the doctor wouldn't take no for an answer and kept injecting it into my vein everyday. I was tripping balls in my sleep, hallucinating like crazy, where reality combined with what I was dreaming about:) My room door leading to the balcony was at my full disposal and open 24/7 (hot summer days), so by shear luck I haven't plunged down to my death during one of the nights.

There are hundreds of deep experiments involving animals like this. While I do understand WHY it was done, I can’t help but think there must be another way. This just seems so cruel. I’m sure it would seem cruel back then as well

When my fiance passed 2 weeks before our wedding I got hooked. This was My choosing. Yes I am clean now. These animals were forced. How horrible. Addiction to any drug is tragic in itself. People... Stay Away from Drugs. It is just Not worth it.

You know it’s gonna be a good day when you get a fresh “dark side of science” video

Love your vids and addiction is an issue I'm working through right now. Shit sucks.

As someone who is in recovery from drug addiction this is honestly painful to learn and I really struggled to watch the entire video because of how cruel this experiment really was

The fact that I almost felt jealous of the monkeys says a whole freakin' lot about addiction...

Chimpanzees, Apes,Monkeys all can be scary enough without adding anything. Edit* Primates.... above all enjoyed Plainly Difficults video as I drifted to sleep. 😊

I knew a couple of speed freaks back in the 80's, and I know from them that the withdrawal can be very severe, including seizures and death, it's supposed to be pretty dangerous to go cold turkey off amphetamines, so not too sure if it's correct to say the don't have physical withdrawal symptoms.

When he says « psychologically addicting » it means those stimulants are giving you bursts of dopamine and if you stop suddenly, you won’t be getting the same amount. It will cause depression for a few days until the brain recovers. I’d still call that addiction in general.

actually this study and others similar were used promote fear of the drugs. Recently have been criticized because substances are not addictive per se, it actually depends a lot on the situation of the animal (including humans or course) Animals in better conditions, with a better balanced environment that provide social stimulation and opportunities to rest, hide and explore are way less prone to addiction. In other words, if you have a balanced life is not as easy to get addicted, and the war on drugs should focus on improving social conditions, not on persecuting people and filling private prisons for profit.

The moral of the story is, I guess, that Monkeys like speed.

I love watching these videos! It's insane how much you've improved in editing and stylizing your videos, they're always fantastic to watch. Keep it up👌

REALLY well done, i'm about to start watching all of your "Dark Side of Science" series and this was a fascinating starting point. Keep up the fantastic work, one of the reasons I've always leaned towards computers / electrical or mechanical engineering was avoiding the "dark" parts of science, and I've never wanted to experiment on animals or have too to make ends meet.

I know it was a different time and standards of animal ethics were different, but I still really question how these people internally were okay with doing this. The idea of a surgeon being willing to perform these operations on the monkeys for the sole purpose of using it to forcibly administer an animal drugs is... horrifying. How can you intentionally do that to a living thing?

When I was a heroin addict I think I would have been perfectly okay with being stuck in a small room with unlimited amounts of drugs. Scary shit.

Yeah...I used to get pretty excited too when it was time to get/do a shot of drugs. While I'm glad they were trying to do something for addiction, I hate hearing about the animals they use. I wonder if there's a better way to have gone about this...I believe people come first, but I also don't believe in harming animals for any reason. Then again, if it can save human lives...idk, Such a fine line... oh and BTW, I've been clean 3yrs now.

One problem that I can see in this experiment is that they are locking the monkey in a small confined space with absolutely no other stimulus or social interaction and literally nothing else to do but Medicaid itself. So of course it's going to choose to medicate itself. Of course they're just trying to remove variables. I would be interested to see if a monkey would do the same if it was in a healthy social environment

Man your naration has gotten so much better since I started watching your content. Good work

I watched a few friends (and ex) become so addicted to meth it changed their personalities and pushed all of them into criminal behavior. I expected at least one to drop it because of the legal ramifications, but none did. They're all in jail now. Such a difference from when I was growing up, weed and cheap wine were the thing.

Awesome video. I've been researching this for a paper at school and it is incredibly dark. Thanks for explaining it so well!

Absolutely LOVING your Dark Side of Science videos!! Thank you so much for your content :)

My team and I studied psychoactive drugs in university, we just didn't write any papers about it.

Considering the 60's in America, it seems status-quo that monkeys were turned into riddled drug addicts. I'd like to believe that there were great strides made because of this work, but I don't see it in my city. A more useful study could be seeing what blocks addiction in the candidates who were and were not predisposed to addiction. Creating and studying an inverse chemical relationship to addiction. Always love your work Plainly. Thought provoking and thorough. Thanks for another stellar video!

I think the little box in the right hand corner at 17:43 is something that would come up before ads on British tv to signify the switch in content. Very cool detail!

After ten years of battling addiction and HEAVY drinking- I know personally how hellish the cycle of addiction/withdrawal/ relapse is.....what they did to these animals is unforgivable. I'm lucky enough to be sober now but it wasn't without having to fight tooth and nail for awhile. These animals didn't choose this or have any idea whats happening to their body, which must have been so scary

really makes the entire drug war pointless and depressingly terrible given it hadn't really taken off yet in 1969

I'd agree with a 4 if the experiment actually had a real purpose, but all it did was show the obvious that could be observed from addict humans. In my opinion it's more ethical to treat them poorly if you are actually making strides in our knowledge which would help people. It seems like they didn't get much here, so it was just pointless cruelty.

finding your channel on an early Sunday morning, perfection

Must not be easy covering such dark things mad respect bringing this to light bro kia ora much love from NZ 🇳🇿

The 1960s were a wild time to be alive, but even wilder if you're monke

Interesting that morphine seemed to have the least negative effects and the drug use plateaued. Whereas codeine, a drug which is supposed to be a safer alternative to morphine, resulted in all the subjects dying from overdose

Really been watching your videos , I'm loven how your videos go directly along to my interests ;D . Keep these comming friend!

I found this video because a video on my channel is being recommended by this one 🤣 glad i did, great video & channel!

I think most of us saw the TED TALK about "rat park" which proved connections with people and given more things to encourage growth instead of in a cage with nothing but drugs. I'm a recovering addict and if I was put in that EXACT same situation as the monkeys in this experiment....that switch for opioids and nicotine would've been broke off!

Personally, I don't know how some people can interact with animals so regularly and intimately, and not feel utter remorse for trauma inflicted. I guess that's why we hide our meat industry so far away from the public's eyes.

Love your resource reusement at 5:52 the gif flipped upside down.

To ability these researchers have to detach themselves from the cruelty and suffering they cause in the name of science is astonishing and leads me to believe that they are the ones who should be studied to find out what turned them into monsters.

Out of all the videos you’ve done about heavy subjects, this was the hardest for me. Those poor animals. Still your discussion was very well presented and straightforward. We need to remember and never repeat.

While it proved that addictive drugs are addictive it also gave a good baseline as to how addictive they are and what the side effects of use and withdrawal are. This was in the late 60s too, in the early 20th century people still believed that addiction was caused by 'opium appetite', that Heroin was a non-addictive morphine substitute and a whole lot of other stuff that we would see as utter nonsense now. This study gave good insight into things we didn't really understand all that well in the 60s. People were still looking for a single injection cure for opiate addiction back then. William S Burroughs even thought he was cured after a single dose of an antihistamine around that time. A study on rats showed that the only drugs a rat will self administer until death from overdose are cocaine and nicotine. That kind of changes the dynamic of how 'safe' nicotine is.

Dude bro your animations are freaking fabulous pluses I really like how u explain things . It's intriguing

Another brilliant episode, although I did find it hard to remain serious when confronted with the angry monkey cartoon 😂 Keep up the good work.

I feel this reflects society today, but you can 100s more types of addictions. We’re just given a bigger box.

I'm 6 years clean from opiates, i spent 15 years as an addict...this test was absolutely bonkers. Good video either way

Great content as usual thanks for the upload

Hi John! Im a new subscriber and i just wantetd to say that i love yout videos. They are very well done. I will defenetly become a Patreon when i have the money for it!

One thing that could have really been beneficial with this study was to test the withdrawal process by using metered doses and reducing the dose over a period of time. I know with caffeine, If I want to get off it, all I have to do is just take less and less over a period of time and I can get off it without getting the headache that happen when you go cold turkey on it. I wonder if the same thing can be done with any other addictive substances out there.

You should show the other side of the story-Rat Park Tl:dr animals that were socially and psychologically healthy only took “small” amounts of drugs. Dependent animals that were returned to healthy social conditions returned to small amounts of usage.

I worked in research at Michigan for a couple years, and to this day they talk about the ethics (or lack thereof) in this study as an example to present day researchers.

I like how the channel name is also a play on the subjects it discusses. The subjects seem easily explained from our modern point of view, but it's always a convoluted mess of sidetracked stuff merging into a conflict. Basically, 'humans are gonna human'.

My little brother told me about these studies, I believe it was these. The way he explained made me feel so hopeless. He said the monkeys were exposed to pure cocaine and given the chance to eat or use more cocaine only having to hit a red button. They’d hit the red button every time, every opportunity they could.

18:45 No it shows that some monkeys are more prone to interacting with stimulus in a box. Their susceptibility to addiction didn't influence the cause of the first injection, manual or automatic. Am I misunderstanding?

i love this. Have you done a video about Unit 731 ?

My favorite account back with another masterpiece

Wonder why they gave them Nalorphine? It's an Opiate agonist, and a pretty shitty one too, as there are better drugs for this purpose, it causes anxiety and confusion, so no wonder the wee monkeys, weren't too jazzed about it.

but did the monkeys even have anything else to do with their time/lives outside the drug levers??

It goes from helping your pain to needing it so you feel like your not dieing

I'm curious about those other experiments you mentioned there. The "Pit of Despair" and "Monkey Mother", was it? Are there videos on them?

And we wonder why monkey throw poop at us.

Post surgery, my Morphine pump was set too low. I had to beg them to turn it up because the pain was ridiculous. It was timed, like the monkey. They did bump it up for me. Addiction did not occur. I spent almost 5 years on painkillers.. no addiction. I went in with the mindset that it can be addictive and be careful.

I like your videos. Thank you for making them

Good video mate

The real conclusion was that captivity caused so pain and suffering that it encouraged the addictive behavior in order to escape the hardship of living a miserable existence, such as being forced into a cage and being tested on. As STEM from Upgrade said best... "A fake world is a lot less painful than the real one." It is a test more on the addiction to escapism than just addiction to substances. I've seen this in my own family away from a controlled environment like a lab and onto the real world. The alcoholism that runs in both sides of the family are due to the need of escapism, mostly escapism from painful childhood or teenage trauma that was never addressed or brushed off by the family as lies and weakness from the individual. Gabor Mate is an expert at how or where addiction comes from and he pioneer the concept that addiction can come from trauma as early as infancy, which many studies have shown the power of implicit memory (or emotional memory) can be and a better indicator to predicting whether a person is more prone to addiction than previously thought. Gabor Mate really changed the way I thought of addiction and made me more understanding and sympathetic to addicts. I'm still wary of them and their manipulative ways, but I am more understanding why they are the way they are, which allows me to survive the addicts within my own family.

Find it interesting alcohol is one of the worst ones in results. I always thought if all drugs where introduced at the same time we would probably ban alcohol over some of the "harder" drugs. But because of cultural significance we practically worship alcoholism as cool, see almost every fictional "playboy".

Sick. Thank you Plainly Difficult for these historical lessons on science and humanity. Edit: I have to order this "You are Stepping on my foot!!!"-T now!

My teacher told me this story every red ribbon week (basically teachers talking about substance abuse). I'd interested in hearing more about what happened.

This where living FEELING beings like we are! They got tortured to the point where this poor animals bite their fingers off! No being able of pain should experience such horror! Shame on those doctor's! They could just asked some addicts and had gotten better results CAUSE HUMANS CAN TALK!

I'd be interested if the amount of sleep each group had was also noted. I have a theory that the psychosis experienced in amphetamine and cocain users is due in large part to the sleep deprivation it causes.

seems like a step up in video quality. keep it up!

Quality as always

These animal experiments still go on everyday with practically every product (cleaning supplies, makeup etc) we use. I saw a video about the horrible things they do to them & it's awful. Try to buy "not tested on animals" if you are an animal lover.

When I was in my early 20s I'd take 10mg of Xanax a day for months. I'd just spend everyday inside creating music and things but also pushed the who world away. I also did a lot of bad things that I only remember because people told me. Also don't know how I survived taking that much everyday but also coming off was God awful and I didn't know what was happening to me. Now I know benzo withdrawal is almost deadly at times. I still struggle at times

They should do the same study on humans in Seattle

your use of musical stings are noice.

The fact alcohol was the second worse really makes you think...

I'm feeling anxiety just listening to this, can't imagine the anxiety the poor monkeys went through

Why did not one of them think of calling it the Funky Monkey Junkie Study? They really dropped the ball on that one…

I think it's fascinating that there seems to be a case for the drugs being phytologically dependent, but you do gotta feel for those poor scared monkeys.