Drugs as a "cure" for addiction don't get it. Methadone is at best a poor stopgap, and so far none of the drugs for cocaine hold much promise. Antabuse is a joke, and narcotic antagonists for alcohol cessation are a poor attempt. But keep trying, folks.

I saw nothing in this article that suggested that some researcher was looking for a; "Cure for Addiction." I did see that they wanted to manufacture a drug to fight; "cocaine addiction." If the disease is truly a disease, like we have been touting for many years, since the AMA dubbed it as such in the 50's, then we will hopefully continue to see research towards medical tools to help out in the fight against addiction. Any tool in the arsenal is a welcome ally in helping to treat this complicated, life threatening, society wrecking disease.

I agree with John French. The idea of using a drug to cure addiction is an oxymoron. I know quite a few people in the "Rooms" that developed an even worse addiction as a direct result of drugs to treat medical conditions that could have easily been addressed with other less addictive Therapeutic methods. We need to discover ways to treat the mental obsession, and let the body repair itself.

Medication Assisted Treatment is an evidenced based practice. Why not treat addiction like any other disease, with medication? Sure there are psycho-social reasons people become addicted, and that is why medication should be used in combination with counseling. We need to change the way we think about addiction and the way we treat addiction. Addiction is afterall a health issue.

I agree to a point with Fredrick and John, there is no medical cure for addiction. But in the earlier stages of abstinense,drugs can help one get through the toughest cravings. But after a extended period of use the "blocker" becomes the drug of choice. See the new opiate "cure", suboxone.

John & Fredrick there is no cure for addiction, just like diabetes. this drug showed promise to reduce cravings so the addict can focus on recovery & their brain can begin to heal itself. Do the research folks, Ron has obviously done his.

If we believe that addiction is a disease, then why not continue to search for a cure, just as there is an effort to find a cure for HIV, and cancer just to name a few. Any progress we make toward lessening the damage of addiction, and efforts to assist in preventing relapse, in my opnion is more than welcomed. There may never be a cure but that does not mean we should stop trying.

The AA literature clearly states "no AA member plays doctor". Read "The AA Member Medications and Other Drugs" before disclaiming medications. It's about personal choice AND responsibility And nowhere have I heard anyone proclaim a CURE. Get with the program!

"...sending shares of drug-maker Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners Inc. plunging." Everything is so money driven... It has been shown that the non-toxic and non-addictive Salvinorin A, the active ingredient of Salvia divinorum, gets rats off of cocaine. (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24424552.htm). Yet we are trying to criminalize it across the country which will make it hard to study its effects in humans, and no one cares - no money can be made off of it, although I am sure government would save in the long run by investing in such research.

To what purpose a drug to "treat" cocaine use? Will it result in the drug user changing life style, quitting the use of intoxicants that are a major reason for the misery of life that reinforces the supposed refuge of self-poisoning? Not likely. In fact, by using drugs to "withdraw" from drugs, we are only reinforcing the image as drugs useful in dealing with life problems. Unless the purpose of drugs vs. drugs is reinforcement of drug use, let's get real. It's all about choice. And chosing reinforces self-concept, and life success!

I agree with Connie and Chris that anti-addiction medications are not "cures" and are not marketed as such. The goal of these medications is to help the person achieve recovery by reducing cravings, stabilizing metabolism, enabling one to feel "normal".

Bob, It's precisely the learning of self-discipline (note the word "self") that benefits the recovery process. To my experience, the more difficult the transition to sobriety the longer-lasting the "cure." It is not our burden or achievement to treat the addict, but to assist in the process of increasing self-confidence, the recognition that a sober life not only is a more healthy life, but a personal achievement that opens the doors to further self-growth and personal success. The name of the game is to encourage self-growth, -achievement and confidence. What good to the user to believe that he was cured, owes his sobriety to a force outside of self? Treatment begins once the user decides to quit. Treatment is learning to live sober, not curing the addict.

Terrance is right on. Addiction is labeled a disease and research definitely needs to be continued to find a treatment (not cure) for this horrible disease. No cure has ever been found for many diseases. Why are people so against medication as treatment? Even mental problems are treated with medication? What would the world be today without anti-depressants? There is medication to treat bi-polar disorders, schizophrenia, etc., etc..Without the research that went into finding treatments for these disorders, there would be many more dysfunctional people in society. Without the medication, do you think counseling alone would benefit people with these disorders? Addicts also need more than just being advised to use will power!!!

The "evidenced based" nature of medication to "treat" addiction is driven by pharmaceutical companies, plain and simple. The fact that this particular pharmaceutical company will nowlook for a more limited "proof of concept" to market the drug for meth addiction is how it generally works. If you do your research into psychotropic medications for many conditions, such as depression, you'll discover that the majority of antidepressants show no better outcomes than placebo either; but in the marketing strategy we're fooled into thinking otherwise. And if one anti-depressant doesn't work, just add another. Yes, there are conditions which require medication, and some medications may assist in initial recovery. But at present the biggest problem we're seeing IS pharmaceuticals, clients on 10+ various medications for conditions that were diagnosed while the client was either actively using or in detox. It's rather sad, especially in terms of how many supposed addictions professionals are on the medication bus.

In response to Laurie, I believe that there is abuse in basically every profession. Money/Greed appears to be the bottom line in today's society. I disagree; however, that antidepressants, antipsychotics, etc. do not work better than a placebo. I have seen such medications give back individuals their life, and I do not believe it was all psychological. I am not willing to believe that these people are all so psychologically unstable that they allow a medication's indications to influence the outcome. I do believe that all medications are over prescribed. A patient goes to a medical professional complaining of pain, etc. and they are prescribed a pill. I believe there should be better monitoring of patient's after they have been prescribed medications. I see abuse in the medical field, Psychiatry, construction, politics, etc., etc., etc., I do agree that there are some addiction professionals abusing the medication concept; however, I also believe there are addiction professionals that have been abusing the psych. treatment process for years with minimal success in treating the addiction problem.

Promoting drugs to escape from drugs serves to justify use of drugs to deal with the life problems. Whatever else “drug treatment” may be, it cannot begin with the assumption that the person is “powerless” using his own resources, to change! Prescribed drugs merely and obviously legitimize and encourage drug use. Offenders on community supervision are among the most difficult population to work with, generally involuntary and resistant. In y practice most were previously exposed to symptom relief through drugs and its close collaborator, the mysteries of 12-Step and Higher Power (I distinguish between AA/NA as self-help and its salaried professional adherents). Fed on a diet of reliance on outside intervention and “relapse is part of recovery” (forget that “relapse” means drug use, a criminal behavior!), these veterans of traditional “drug treatment” serially violate law and supervision for yet another stint of incarceration. Common sense: drug users use drugs because they choose to use drugs. Why mystify the obvious (research on the brain notwithstanding). At bottom choice always precedes behavior. We professionals, of all people, are ethically obligated and responsible to assist our clientele towards awareness and self-empowerment. Mystification, whether drugs or other source of power beyond that of the self-victimizer as the curative agent promotes self-doubt, encourages “relapse,” lays the foundation for a continuing life of failure and self-induced misery.

A lot of big words that the common lay person does not understand is not going to cure drug addicts. I believe this is the type of vocabulary primarily used during these costly psychcounseling sessions and possibly part of the reason this treatment does not work. One has to be empathetic and able to communicate and offer ways for the addicts to help themselves rather just be a listener as I understand happens 99% of the time. Most addicts are not there just to ventilate and this type of treatment is a waste of time and money (wheather it be to the client or the states).

Just wondering, David, if you're opposed to the use of all drugs? Anti-inflammatories for arthritis? anti-psychotics for schizophrenics? Where do you draw the line? Treatment is whatever works, and if medication assisted treatment helps some people, why do you care? No one's forcing it on you; why would you deny it to those (like me) whom it may help. And yes, medication (subutex), along with a lot of hard work, did enable me to re-build my life and self-confidence, re-start a life of personal growth, develop a level of spirituality I've never had, as well as return to school for a 2nd Master's degree. I hate to think where I'd be now without such medication. So again I ask, who are you to deny me what works for me?

Mark, one size does not fit all. On occasion I do come across individuals successful thanks to the spiritual or medical approach to sobriety. I occasionally recommend medications for individuals, particularly suffering debilitating depression, for example. I agree that pharmaceuticals are indicated for certain medical problems. But generally, I maintain that drug use is a choice, not a disease. My project is to assist my clients recognize their own ability to take control and responsibility for using drugs. By my experience reliance on artificial interventions, such as the approach indicated in this article that drugs are effective in controlling the urge to use removes the key element, self-empowering choice, from overcoming the urge and impulse (read “choice”) to use. Recognition that I can succeed, and without reliance on artificial or outside "expert" intervention is SELF-affirming! And if I can overcome that which I swore off so many times and failed, then I have proven my ability also to succeed in other areas of my life. And this is the beginning of that positive and upward spiral called “cure” (yes Mark, I view lifetime sobriety also an achievable choice). The word “Addiction” means “disease” and, in my practice, Disease is the obstacle. Meds treat disease so, excepting the approximately 5% of the general population with organic-based psychiatric problems, meds are an obstacle to self-cure.

CPP 109 is a GABA transaminase inhibitor. The concept is that by increasing GABA, release of DA would be reduced. However, GABA is an important inhibitory substance throughout the brain and a few GABA-T inhibitors are already marketed as anti-seizure drugs. You want a drug that stops the craving for alcohol AND cocaine: amperozide works beautifully in animals and is used by Swedish addicts to get clean. No longer on patent, so it will not see the light of day in the US. Oh, well.

So long as we shorthand addiction as a disease, we encourage others to try treating it with pills.

Drug use is both a choice and a disease. As the brain is altered by continued heavy drinking (not just any alcohol since many drink across their lifetime with no problems) or use drugs to get high, this damages the brain's capacity to choose long-term over short-term rewards, blunts the capacity to experience life's little pleasures and creates a biological drive to get the drug (or alcohol) and use it. While the person is choosing, they are choosing with an altered brain. Some medications seem capable of helping people to abstain for longer periods of time, giving them the opportunity to heal their brain and regain it's more normal function. A real barrier in our field is not medication versus talk therapies, but our either/or thinking. This is usually driven more my ideology on the nature of addiction than by empirical research.

To say addiction is not a disease is to day endogenous depression or B-Polar disorder is not a disease either. As an addiction specialist I CAN ASSURE YOU ADDICTION IS A BRAIN DISEASE. Just ask Dr. Nora Volkow at NIDA. Furthermore to say using replacement therapy is an oxymoron is to say treating diabetes with insulin is also a oxymoron. Its time to get rid of the social stigma of addiction and start seeing it for what it is "A Chronic Progressive Brain Disease"

KY, if what you are saying is that the user has sufficiently destroyed the brain’s capacity to function, that this limits choice and the desire to self-improvement or, for that matter to even continue to live, then I agree that we are dealing with a problem for which pharmaceutical intervention is appropriate. My personal experience, however, working outpatient with offenders on community supervision is that knowing that next hit will with certainty deliver a severe legal consequence, nearly all choose not to take it. To me this clearly demonstrates that, given the choice between sobriety and freedom or using and jail, most will make the rationale choice for freedom. This is the strength of a legally-mandated drug treatment that it forces the individual to stop, and this provides the a framework in which the offender realizes that the choice to not use or face punishment may be accepted as the choice to not use and set self free, the opportunity to change life-style. Of course not every person realizing this possibility takes the decision to life-time sobriety. Society, culture, psychology are still barriers to be overcome. But precedent now exists, and the choice is still a realizable option. “Drug treatment” is, for me, a misnomer. The addict chooses to quit. Them the struggle, the actual treatment process to overcome self-defeat, begins.

KY Boy - You hit the nail on the head. Well said sir.

It is a HUGE mistake to think that what works for one addiction works for all addictions. Every time we try to force-fit addicts against the A/A tenet of singleness-of-purpose, people will die. I know at least 10 junkies who are DEAD today because they didn't do a "good 4th-step"! They're certainly not alive for receiving top-tier care in a medically supervised Opiate Treatment Program like the one I attend. They never got that chance. They were told to hold hands, pray to a higher power and call their sponsor. Not that there is anything wrong with that stuff, but it should be offered as a voluntary adjunct to treatment NOT as a substitute for it. Fundamentalism is dangerous and destructive whether regarding religion, recovery or any one of the many other forms. Maybe it is true: "the biggest problem with Christianity is Christians."

Rick, as someone who does not self-describe as an “addiction specialist” (just 20 years experience with roughly 60% success rate) I wont question your credentials nor your “assurance” regarding addiction as a “brain disease.” You are correct that Nora Volkow did write that “addiction is a chronic and progressive brain disease (Join Together, July 29, 2005). Then again, brain chemistry research is her specialization, it should not surprise that her research supports her assumptions, or she would long have moved on to a different research area. And does it not make sense that most drugs are poison and do damage to the brain and other body organs? Is the brain damaged victim of suffering from a disease? Why define drug-induced brain damage differently. Volkow’s research may be interesting but it has limited applicability in promoting the choice to stop self-abuse with drugs, a behavioral problem. By my clinical experience working with offenders on community-based supervision, the degree of compliance to drug abstinence is directly related to the degree of threat faced for continuing to use. While it may take several bites of the supervision apple, in the end most comply, are empowered to maintain abstinence. And, having realized that they can choose not to use to avoid punishment, in my program they are provide the next step, that they also have the power to quit for self. No need for meds, no need for “addiction specialists.” Just plain old belief in our innate ability to make life-affirming choices.

You can always tell the self-aggrandizing "experts" in these forums. They try to dominate the discussion in that inimitable self-rightous manner: using multiple submissions. Meanwhile, they never smoked a joint! They try to tell others how to play baseball yet they have never played the game! It is only lately that society has begun to treat addiction at its metabolic core. Any attempted solution to the drug addiction problem which fails to address health is doomed to failure. Maybe in the future we will stop using words like "offenders" when referring to addicts. Many in the criminal justice field confuse aberrance with addiction; the end result is everyone gets corralled through the legal system's clearinghouse in service of public policy--and we call it "treatment". For those afflicted addicts/alcoholics it's akin to being sent to the Gulag vs the cardiac ward for heart disease.

AMEN TO BRIAN A'S COMMENT. MR. TURNER'S STATEMENT THAT ADDICTS FACED WITH INCARCERATION OR OTHER VERY BAD CIRCUMSTANCES WILL CHOOSE TO STOP USING DRUGS JUST PROVES TO ME HOW LITTLE KNOWLEDGE HE HAS ON THE DISEASE.

I am encouraged by the relentless pursuit of an agent to add to the arsenal of medication-assisted- treatments already available for alcohol, nicotine and narcotic addictions. I am discouraged by all the philosophical posturing that engulfs an issue which should be strictly about scientific medical research, the procedural merits and efficacy; Not whether we should disallow others access to a medical treatment based upon personal opposition. There’s a word for that–it’s called Fascism. Stimulant addiction has been particularly difficult to pharmacologically treat due to the brisk reset rate of dopamine neurons which is inversely caused by the post-synaptic effects of this neurotransmitter’s slow biochemical mediation. This is classical homeostasis, but at the neurohormonal level indicated by excess dopamine leading to psychosis and, too little, implicated in Parkinson's disease. I believe we could surmount this by using drugs with a unique mechanism of action; categorized as tuberomammillary activators. The most well know from this class is Modafinil, [approved in the U.S. to help narcoleptics stay awake]. This medication helps curb the appetite for stimulants, it is self-limiting regarding tolerance and most importantly, provides straightway modulation of post-stimulant depression to the degree which the addict in treatment can participate in his/her recovery without the debilitating distractions of craving and depression; the two major reasons for relapse back to stimulant use.

I agree with John French above. Drugs for a "cure" to address addiction isn't the best way. Substituting one chemical for another doesn't sound healthy. But I give people an "A" for effort.