[hexxiiiz]

I suppose more succinctly, claiming that dopamine causes addiction is like claiming that the cam shaft is what makes a car go. Addiction is a phenomena that involves what appears to be a lot of factors and components; dopamine appears to be one of them. I think this is the misapprehension the article is trying to rectify, but I am not sure that the way the article pursues the case it makes really simplifies things.

In biological, let alone neurological systems, the notion of cause is far less discrete than it is in a reductive area such as basic physics. Many of the long term effects in these kinds of systems arise in circumstances where there are clearly feedback loops and many of them overlapping. One component may be involved in the dynamics of addiction, regulating motor functions, and learning, and each of these phenomena involve many components. The neurotrash that pushes the message that dopamine is somehow the causal component in the process of addiction appeals to the reductive interest in seeing every effect as the consequence of a straightforward cause.

This kind of thinking in public perception also might be the consequence of the pharma industry pushing a narrative of "chemical imbalances" being at the root of behavioral and psychological problems, discharging from this picture factors on many other levels such as past experiences, mental associations, social and familial conditions, economic circumstances, etc... all of which can contribute to addiction as a phenomena.