Study: Methadone May Be Effective in Treating Cocaine Addiction

Study: Methadone May Be Effective in Treating Cocaine Addiction
November 25, 2008

Research Summary

New research out of the University of Guelph in Canada suggests that methadone, normally used to treat opiate dependence, may also be effective in treating cocaine addiction, the Ottawa Citizen reported Nov. 24.

Researcher Francesco Leri and colleagues tested the effects of methadone on cocaine-dependent rats and found that the rats did not experience cocaine highs after getting methadone.

The researchers also found that methadone appeared to have a "resetting" effect on portions of the rats' brains responsible for addictive behavior. "What's interesting is that, among the rats given cocaine and then methadone, these regions of the brain looked similar to how they appeared in the rats that were never exposed to cocaine," Leri said.

"We feel we may have the hope of resetting the brains of some individuals to a type of normality," he said. "I think it should be tried and I guarantee you there will be some individuals -- not everybody -- who will do better on methadone, who will be stabilized on methadone."

The U.S. National Institute for Drug Abuse also is researching the effects of methadone and similar addiction medication, such as buprenorphine on cocaine-dependency.

The findings were published online Nov. 6, 2008 in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology.

This article summarizes an external report or press release on research published in a scientific journal. When available, links to the sources are provided above.

COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE:

Posted by caitlinr@stonehillcollege on 04 Dec 08 08:31 AM EST

While this is promising news for those who struggling with staying sober, I believe more research needs to be done on it. Should research show that it makes such huge impact in "resetting" the mind as though an addiction was never present, it should be an available option for those who are struggling. If this treatment can help more people, I believe it should be thoroughly researched to ensure it can be as effective as possible.

Posted by mariesrun on 02 Dec 08 10:47 PM EST

I have been on methadone for > 10 yrs, and have been illicit-drug-free since. I went thru many abstinence based programs, including 2 years at Phoenix House, but eventually relapsed under doctors' care after being diagnosed with MS and given opiate pain meds. Once I was stablized on methadone, I returned to school and earned a Masters Degree. I continue on methadone for pain mgmt. While finding the right "dose", I would often "nod out" the first 2-3 days after raising my dose, or fall asleep right after dosing, but this passed quickly. I was a multi-drug user, injecting H & C, but found I had NO cocaine cravings on methadone. I haven't used since beginning methadone; but don't find it CHEAP in any way, and figure I've already spent more than $30,000. on methadone. Because of heart valve replacement, drs tell me I would not likely survive a methadone detox. Though it saved my life, I would also recommend that addicts try abstinence based treatment FIRST, SECOND. Although Methadone is life-saving and harm-reducing, and I am a staunch methadone advocate, I still believe only the most intractable cases should be treated thusly.

Posted by Chas on 01 Dec 08 08:40 PM EST

The NIH has a consensus statement wherein they infer that opiate maintenance therapy is the single best treatment method for the chronically relapsing opiate addicted patient. I was once an abstinent-based physician. After ten years practicing using methadone and then buprenorphine, I can say without a doubt that I have seen many times the success of opiate maintenance as opposed to abstinence. Some patients can make it with abstinence and should always try that route first, even second, perhaps even a third time. But, if three times does not do it, it is time to get medication assistance and methadone is proven to help. It is sad that there is such prejudice and stigma associated with taking a medication that makes your life work. Would society deny a diabetic insulin? Yet they are ready to pounce on some poor soul who has found a way to leave the horrors of opiate addiciton behind and move on to a better life. Methadone and buprenorphine, when used correctly, save lives, no doubt in my mind.

Posted by joda on 29 Nov 08 12:12 AM EST

The most promising medication for stimulant addiction may be modafinil. If a opiate addict has never experienced feelings of hopelessness and abandonment generated by the rigors of and general failure of orthodox “treatments”, they’ll not fully benefit from the normalizing affects of methadone. With the introduction of medications that ameliorate post-acute withdrawal and without the distraction of cravings and withdrawal, patients can focus on issues such as rebuilding relationships and self-esteem, reducing stress and anxiety, restoring careers and finances, and exploring underlying behaviors they need to change. Twelve step meetings are completely optional as a voluntary adjunct to treatment; certainly not a substitute for it. Those rehabs that promote its sole use as treatment should be stripped of their licenses to operate. Every single addiction is as different as it is similar. It has been a long time in coming that addiction medicine is practiced with the same precision as other medical disciplines with the ranks of former junkies like myself regaining lives characterized by dignity, self-worth and citizenship.

Posted by Barry Schecter on 26 Nov 08 08:51 PM EST

I have previously been a methadone maintenance patient. After a long period of abstinence and much continued education and training, I was fortunate enough to become the director of the clinic that I tapered from. While I spoke to Dr. herman Joseph, a pioneer in Methadone Maintenance Treatment, we discussed the concept of putting antabuse and a small insignificant amount of naltrexone in the methadone as a deterrent to drinking alcohol and using cocaine. I have never seen a patient lose the desire to get high on cocaine while being a long term MM patient. Interesting research that I saw at a later date, was combining Acamprosate, Antabuse and Naltrexone as a combination as a deterrent to alcohol cravings. We have found a modicom of success with this combination. I welcome any feedback at Barrys8042@aol.com. Peace.

Posted by kim on 26 Nov 08 07:19 PM EST

Methadone has horrible,dangerous side effects for the users and the people who they come in contact with. You don't think falling asleep with a cigarette is harmful to others? Them clinics that are individually owned are not run the correct way. They hook the users by upping the daily dose into the hundreds, that way there is no point of return. The users are so scared of the withdrawal symptoms, they won't think of weaning off methadone; and if the users ask to wean off the methadone, the clinics just tell them the worse. But, if the same user doesn't have the money to pay for the week, the clinic will detox the user 10mg a day!!!! They don't care about the symptoms then! It is not the answer to another drug. The withdrawal from heroin, cocaine, and pain killers is not long. A person can get through it in 3 days or less with support and activities to do. Methadone! That can take years to get off. Not because the user wants to take years, but they have to, to do it the safe way. It is dangerous if the levels in the body are not stable. The users are still addicts on methadone, And very, very, dangerous to themselves and everyone around them.

Posted by daveh on 26 Nov 08 04:43 PM EST

As a physician i write Suboxone for opioid addiction and treat addicts every day. This study is exactly the reason I don't like methadone because you are accually trading a cocaine addiction for a opioid addiction because it is a full agonist with a very long half life. if you don't believe then put them on methadone and after a month stop the methadone and see what withdrawl you get, it is bad enough that they never get off the stuff

Posted by anonymous cont. on 26 Nov 08 04:13 PM EST

I think it is sad for so many people to have such closed minds. Many people I know who are currently in the working in the addiction field who are 12 step proponents have such unfounded bias, and misinformation about opiate replacement therapy. I believe that whatever works-if something does work then praise God for it.- Anonymous

Posted by anonymous cont. on 26 Nov 08 04:10 PM EST

#2 People on methadone just turn to other drugs to get high.... I used drugs because I have a disease based in a mental obsession and a physical compulsion. In other words the craving to do drugs is the same as a it would be for someone with OCD that has a craving to wash their hands every ten minutes. You cannot think about anything else until you act on the craving. For me methadone effectively eliminated that craving- not just for opiates, but for other drugs as well. That being said: I have been clean on Methadone for more than 6 years and in that time I have gone back to college and got degrees in addiction counseling and social work and am currently in grad school. I am happily married with two dogs. I owm my own home, I have mended relationships with family members that hadbeen broken. All things that were at one time impossible. I have a good life today.

Posted by Anonymous on 26 Nov 08 04:02 PM EST

I am a recovering addict, who during active addiction was addicted to a multitude of different substances, including heroin and cocaine. I was involved in the 12 step support community for years and was never able to achieve continued abstinence. After a near death experience during a relapse, I decided to give methadone a try. I had always only heard very negative things about methadone maintenance,but being desparate and having tried everything else, I decided to give it a try.Many things that I had previously belived about methadone maintenance were proven wrong, by my own personal experience. #1-I had heard that meth was just the same as legal distribution of opiates, enabling the addict an easier way to get high..... I only ever felt any effect from the methadone for the first week or two until my levels were stable. I do not get high on methadone. Also the methadone keeps me from getting high if I were to use opiates having a blocking effect.

Posted by dun smyth on 26 Nov 08 03:24 PM EST

Jim, I have never met an opioid dependent person yet for whom I did not develop great respect. More recently, I am engaged in communities dealing with the ravages on high-risk groups of oxycontin and other pharma formats. Still, where both medical and recreational impacts are concerned our concerns really relate to a subgroup, those with life-long biological vulnerability. For others, myself included, medical/hospital treatment with opiates leads to very unpleasant reactions. In fact, between 14-17% of contemporary opioid consumers fit criteria for methadone maintenance. I personally have encountered a senior high school student with less than a month of heroin involvement who was pushed into methadone treatment -- in spite of her clear desire for drug-free treatment -- by a large public addiction center. The research favoring this low-cost treatment is apparent. Still, a contradiction: we have a huge lobby here and across the Atlantic for heroin replacement programs. Why? Because their advocates have considerable evidence of the shortcomings of methadone for the dominant drug consumers of today, and are using it.

Posted by Jim on 26 Nov 08 01:10 PM EST

For many people dependency upon opioids is a result of failed medical interventions. Others abuse opioids for the recreational pleasures. In both cases, opioid dependency has been clearly established as a medical health condition that responds very well to methadone maintenance. There have been few reports of the benefits from methadone over the years. As a nation, it is good to complain about those drug addicts and get them treatment. Oh, but not in my neighborhood. Americans need to be more understanding of drug treatment, especially methadone treatment. For many who are serious about dug recovery, methadone and counseling are life saving programs. Federally funded studies (http://pain-topics.org/pdf/CSAT_Methadone_Briefing.pdf for example) clearly show that the majority of methadone problems are not from the accredited methadone treatment programs. When methadone patients are identified as impaired, we blame the methadone and the clinics. However, toxicology results show other drugs at significantly above therapeutic doses as the source of the impairment. Other studies support that methadone deaths and street availability are due to increasing MD prescribing abuse.

Posted by dun smyth on 26 Nov 08 12:30 PM EST

Yes, one gets a good visual image of those lives being salvaged mornings at any methadone clinic and its exterior environment across the land. And marvels at the fine cushion meth provides for those crashing from a night of flashing. What all those who understand the biological realities of today's 'no fear' multiple drug users should be advocating for is very early identification of children with under-arousal such as low morning cortisol levels and low heart resting rates. Methadone does not succeed with multiple drug users, opiate consumers with underlying alcoholism and those with violence. Take a look at treatment profiles over the past three decades and the increasing prevalence of these factors and one quickly gets the reality of the methadone industry. Big money, loss of professional integrity and ideology are the corrupting features here and in other institutional areas of American life.

Posted by Steve Coulter, MD on 26 Nov 08 11:41 AM EST

How unfortunate that misinformation and bias about methadone remains so entrenched in the addiction treatment field, as evidenced by other comments here. For opiate addiction, no treatment is as successful as methadone (where success is measured by clinical outcomes for populations). William White wrote an excellent article in Counsellor magazine, from the perspective of a reformed methadone-hater: Methadone and the Anti-medication Bias in Addiction Treatment http://www.counselormagazine.com/content/view/118/63/ If methadone (or buprenorphine) pans out as useful treatment for cocaine addiction, many more devastated lives can be salvaged.

Posted by Heather on 26 Nov 08 11:18 AM EST

What about the comorbidity of Methadone use for a heroin addict who also uses cocaine? Are the same effects expected?

Posted by dun smyth on 26 Nov 08 11:17 AM EST

This is another sign pointing to the institutional weakness here that goes well beyond the addiction research world. Anyone who works on the front-lines in this field understands that animals aren't driven by the search for the arousing rush that drives today's multi-drug using population. Methadone will never be the drug of choice for today's different and complex using group today; it hails from a long-gone era where single drug use by the traditional over-aroused addict population was the norm. That is ancient history. Visit any meth clinic and you quickly get the basic: meth functions today largely as a means for coming down from the flash of injecting/smoking cocaine derivatives. Any substance, pharma or street source, that fails to deliver a rush will never be an effective drug replacement tool. And boosting the danger around the environment in which it is sought is vital to keep it going. Time to think about the big picture here. Rudy for drug czar.

Your Turn! Post a public comment (read guidelines):

Name:
Comment: (limit 200 words)
Enter this word (help):	Change

GUIDELINES:
To keep this feature useful for all, please:

Keep it clean, courteous, and on-topic. Comments are meant for thoughtful discussion of the article published above.
Do not post promotional links to organizations, products or services, or personal requests for assistance (get help).
Proof your comments carefully, use good spelling and punctuation, and don't use ALL CAPS. Comments are published immediately and cannot be edited.

Deceptive, slanderous and commercially-motivated posts are prohibited. We reserve the right to remove comments not conforming to these guidelines. (Report a comment).

Have questions or feedback? Contact us.

New Brain Cell Research Could Yield Targeted Addiction Medications

Gene Could Point Way to Proper Methadone Doses

One-Time Morphine Use Could Raise Addiction Risk, Study Says

Bureaucracy Versus Buprenorphine

The Physician Clinical Support System

Opioid Treatment Program Directory