Quarantine leads to increased rates of drug dependency

The argument

Alcohol and marijuana sales have spiked in the US over the quarantine period. As people look for ways to pass the time, alcohol and mind-altering substances are emerging as a popular purchase. However, alcohol and substances, coupled with the stress and anxiety of a global pandemic, social isolation and increased feelings of depression, creates an environment that can lead to substance and alcohol dependency. Following the SARS outbreak in 2003, researchers found higher rates of alcohol and substance abuse in those that had been in self-imposed quarantined up to three years after the quarantine ended.

Context

Periods of intense social isolation cause humans to become increasingly dependent on substances and alcohol.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Sales figures do not measure consumption. Alcohol sales shifted out of bars, restaurants and venues, whose trade collapsed, and into shops and online delivery, so a retail increase partly records where alcohol was bought rather than how much was drunk — and aggregate consumption in several countries was found to be flat or lower across the period even as retail rose. The inference from a sales spike to rising dependency does not survive that. The distribution also matters more than the average. Research on the period found that drinking became more polarised: many people drank less as social occasions disappeared, while a minority — largely those already drinking heavily — drank more. That is a finding about pre-existing risk rather than about confinement generating dependency in the general population. The SARS evidence is weaker still for the purpose: the study usually cited concerned hospital workers, many of whom had also faced occupational trauma, infection risk and bereavement during the outbreak itself, so elevated rates years later cannot be attributed to quarantine as distinct from everything else they experienced. That confound is the ground of the third sibling position, that the effect depends on other factors — and the argument reproduces it by bundling quarantine together with pandemic stress, isolation and depression, which concedes that separating out quarantine's own contribution is exactly what it has not done.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Retail sales increases partly record a shift in where alcohol was bought after bars and restaurants closed rather than an increase in consumption, and aggregate consumption in several countries was found flat or lower even as retail rose. [Rejecting P2] The SARS finding comes from a specific occupational group, largely hospital workers also exposed to the outbreak's infection risk, trauma and bereavement, so the elevated rates cannot be separated from other stressors — a confound the premise reproduces by bundling quarantine with pandemic stress and isolation.