For the study, Dr. Stephen Dewey, a neuroanatomist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., and colleagues analyzed the safety and effectiveness of low doses of vigabatrin in 10 patients addicted to methamphetamine, three addicted to cocaine, and 17 addicted to both drugs. On average, the 30 patients had been addicted to the drug for 13 years.

Previous studies had linked vigabatrin treatment with vision problems. But there was no evidence of such problems from the low-dosage regimen.

Sixteen of the 18 participants who completed the nine-week treatment program remained drug-free during the last six weeks of the study, despite living in their normal home environment with ready access to drugs.

"The beauty of vigabatrin is that you're not only blocking the effect of the drug, but you're also blocking the biochemical effect of environmental cues, the number-one cause of relapses," said Dewey.

The study's findings are published in the February 2005 edition of the journal Synapse.

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