Pubdate: Wed, 29 Nov 2000
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: The Vancouver Sun 2000
Contact:  200 Granville Street, Ste.#1, Vancouver BC V6C 3N3
Fax: (604) 605-2323
Website: http://www.vancouversun.com/
Author: Glenn Bohn
Series: Searching for solutions - Fix on the Downtown Eastside
http://www.mapinc.org/thefix.htm

In Search Of The Magic Bullet

There is no cure for drug addiction but scientists are having some
success using what else but ... drugs.

Scientists are about as close to "curing" drug addiction as they are
to solving cancer or turning base metals into gold. That said,
progress is being made, and methadone is far from the only chemical
helper available to addicts seeking to kick their habit.

In fact, three distinct classes of medication have proved helpful in
fighting cocaine and heroin addiction: non-opiates that alleviate or
lessen painful withdrawal symptoms; opiates that act as agonists by
stimulating the cell receptors normally stimulated by naturally
occurring substances; and opiate antagonists, which cancel out the
action of the illicit drug by binding to a cell receptor without
eliciting a biological response.

Here are some of the promising new medications mentioned in No Further
Harm, a recent report by the addiction-medicine committee of the B.C.
Medical Association:

Clonidine is an agonist that moderates many of the painful symptoms
that occur during opiate withdrawal. It is used during
detoxification.

Levo-alpha-acetyl-methadol, or LAAM is a derivative of Methadone. It
is longer acting and is administered on alternate days in a pill,
whereas Methadone is taken daily, in liquid form.

Naloxone and naltrexone are short- and long-acting antagonist drugs.
Addicts resist taking them because there is no reward activity from
them.  However, naltrexone has been found to be effective in treating
recovering opiate-dependent health care professionals like doctors and
nurses, who work in places where they can get drugs.

Buprenorphine is a long-acting agonist that is 25 to 50 times more
potent than morphine, but does not cause a person to stop breathing
during an overdose. It is combined with Naloxene, an opiate antagonist
used in emergency medicine to reverse the deadly effects of a heroin
overdose, to block the effects of an injected opiate. The down side:
buprenorphine can be abused by drug addicts and sold on the street.

Dr. Ray Baker, chairman of the addiction-medicine committee and a
Vancouver doctor who does clinical trials for drug manufacturers, said
he expects more treatment drugs to be introduced, but no magic bullet.
"For a disease of the brain that's biological, psychological and
social, the best you can hope to do is to treat some of the symptoms
while you buy enough time to develop coping skills, and deal with the
psycho-social catastrophe that the person is trying to get around."
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