ABSTRACT

This chapter describes stimulus-control processes that might operate in drug dependence. It reviews the role of stimulus control in drug self-administration and describes some ways that stimulus control may be used to treat drug dependence. When stimuli paired with drug consumption function simultaneously as conditioned reinforcers and discriminative stimuli, they control extensive chains of drug-seeking behavior. The stimulus control of a model on alcohol consumption has been demonstrated with alcoholics and heavy drinkers under laboratory conditions, and with free-ranging normal drinkers in a public tavern. The stimulus-equivalence research begins to suggest how stimulus control of drug taking can be broadened and extended to stimuli distal to drag taking, perhaps leading to the syndrome of drug dependence. If self-administration is punished in the presence of stimuli that previously set the occasion for drug taking, those stimuli should come to evoke behavior other than self-administration.