There is research that confirms this. Johann Hari talks quite a bit about it in his interview with Sam Harris:https://samharris.org/podcasts/142-addiction-depre

There is research that confirms this. Johann Hari talks quite a bit about it in his interview with Sam Harris:https://samharris.org/podcasts/142-addiction-depression-meaningful-life/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/142-addiction-depression-mean... Most famous is probably the Rat Park study: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park Blaming the drugs is an easy out and probably is more pleasing to people coming from a puritan world view.