Cocaine Addiction Treatments Article
Print
� Bookmark
Cocain
Addiction Treatments that Work
What Treatments Are Effective for Cocaine Abusers?
In 2006, cocaine accounted for about 14 percent of all admissions to drug abuse treatment programs. The majority of
individuals (71 percent in 2006) who seek treatment for cocaine abuse smoke crack and are likely to be polydrug
abusers, or users of more than one substance.
The widespread abuse of cocaine has stimulated extensive efforts to develop treatment programs for cocaine. As with
any drug addiction, this is a complex disease that involves biological changes in the brain as well as myriad
social, familial, and other environmental problems.
Therefore, treatment of cocaine addiction must be comprehensive, and strategies need to assess the neurobiological,
social, and medical aspects of the patient’s drug abuse. Moreover, patients who have a variety of addictions often
have other cooccurring mental disorders that require additional behavioral or pharmacological interventions.
Pharmacological Approaches Presently, there are no FDAapproved medications to treat cocaine addiction.
Consequently, NIDA is aggressively working to identify and test new medications to treat cocaine addiction safely
and effectively. Several medications marketed for other diseases (e.g., baclofen, modafinil, tiagabine, disulfiram,
and topiramate) show promise and have been reported to reduce cocaine use in controlled clinical trials. Among
these, disulfiram (used to treat alcoholism) has produced the most consistent reductions in cocaine abuse.
On the other hand, new knowledge of how the brain is changed by cocaine is directing attention to novel targets for
medications development. Compounds that are currently being tested for addiction treatment take advantage of
underlying cocaineinduced adaptations in the brain that disturb the balance between excitatory (glutamate) and
inhibitory (gammaaminobutyric acid) neurotransmission.
The widespread abuse of cocaine has stimulated extensive efforts to develop treatment programs for cocaine. As
with any drug addiction, this is a complex disease that involves biological changes in the brain as well as myriad
social, familial, and other environmental problems.
TOP
|