We have previously covered Suboxone here when it was first being prescribed. After two years in the field it's apparent that suboxone has a far greater potential for abuse because of it's effectiveness. Sadly it undoubtedly due to doctors over prescribing it (looking at it as wonder drug) This article covers the problem in Florida. The problems appear anecdotal and are more a function of the type of physicians in southern Florida prescribing the drug.

With insurers now trying to preventatively manage health care risk, it's apparent that the size of drug cessation (especially tobacco cessation) markets are going to significantly grow over the next three years. Insurers now seem to actually recognize that an ounce of prevention is worth literally several hundred pounds of cure. From NBC26's story on drug treatment.

With the advent of a possible new blockbuster drug and greater reimbursement levels for the treatment of nicotine, alcohol, and drug addictions, global sales of smoking cessation and addiction treatments are expected to rise from revenues of little over $1.1 billion in 2005 to more than $2.3 billion in 2010, according to Smoking Cessation and Addiction Treatments: A World Market Analysis, a new study released Wednesday from Kalorama Information.

The Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today challenged psychiatrists to learn more about the importance of substance abuse as a factor in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses. At the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting, Dr. Nora Volkow spoke at a special three-day, NIDA-sponsored research program track, "The Science of Addiction: Translating New Insights Into Better Psychiatric Practice." Today's program included a look at the interplay between genes and the environment; and closed with a discussion of the the challenges of addiction and co-occuring mental illnesses.

A researcher at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) is investigating the "brain's own marijuana" -- called endocannabinoid -- in the regulation of stress, stress-related behavior and anxiety. A five-year, $1.7 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health is supporting this investigation.

"It is widely accepted that one of the major reasons that people use and abuse marijuana is to relieve stress," according to Samir Haj-Dahmane, Ph.D., neuroscientist and principal investigator on the RIA study. "However, because marijuana can be addictive, it cannot be used to treat stress-related mood disorders such as anxiety. An alternative strategy may be to directly target the 'brain's own marijuana.'"

Approximately 10.3 percent of U.S. adults appear to have problems with drug use or abuse during their lives, including 2.6 percent who become drug dependent at some point, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Drug abuse refers to the intense desire to take drugs at the exclusion of other activities, and dependence occurs when the body becomes physically dependent on an illicit substance. Both are widespread and associated with substantial costs to society and individuals, according to background information in the article. "Although extensive data on drug use in the U.S. population have been available on an ongoing basis for adults and adolescents, epidemiologic data on the prevalence, correlates, disability, treatment and comorbidity of drug use disorders among adults are seldom collected," the authors write. "In fact, it has been more than 16 years since such detailed information on drug use disorders in the United States has been published."

Professor Alison Jones said benzylpiperazine was a "new drug of abuse" which could have serious clinical effects - similar to those of ecstasy to which it is structurally related.

The finding appears in a paper co-authored by Professor Jones in the prestigious international medical journal - The Lancet.

In the paper Professor Jones from the University of Newcastle and her toxicology colleagues, from Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London and St Georges' Hospital London Drug Testing Laboratory, show for the first time the presence of a new drug of abuse - benzylpiperazine.

Professor Jones said while benzylpiperazine was prohibited in Australia, the drug was readily available in the United Kingdom.

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis defends against stress, starvation and illnesses.

* A new study shows "stunned" adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol secretion among alcoholic patients, reflecting changes in the HPA axis.

* Scientists recommend that alcoholics avoid excessive stress - both physical and psychological - during early abstinence.

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is a hormonal system that defends against stress, starvation and illnesses. New findings of alterations in adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol secretion in alcoholic patients, which reflect changes in the HPA axis, prompt recommendations that alcoholics avoid excessive stress - both physical and psychological - during early abstinence.

UCSF is launching a new study to evaluate treatments for addiction to prescription painkillers and has openings for patients to enroll.

This is the first large-scale study to assess whether addiction to opioid painkillers, such as Vicodin and OxyContin, can effectively be treated with drug treatments currently used for heroin addiction.

The study is part of a national effort involving 11 clinical research centers to evaluate such therapies. Known as the Prescription Opiate Addiction Treatment Study, or POATS, it is being led by the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network, under the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA). UCSF is the only study site in Northern California.

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Addiction and mental health disorders can rob families of their loved ones and tear an effected family member apart both physically and mentally. No one wants to be out of control of his or her actions, but when addiction and/or mental illness claim a stake in a person's life that's what often happens. Fortunately, there is help available and a person can recover and reclaim his or her life at the Casa Palmera Drug Rehab Facility.

Abstract

People take addictive drugs to elevate mood, but with repeated use these drugs produce serious unwanted effects, which can include tolerance to some drug effects, sensitization to others, and an adapted state — dependence — which sets the stage for withdrawal symptoms when drug use stops. The most serious consequence of repetitive drug taking, however, is addiction: a persistent state in which compulsive drug use escapes control, even when serious negative consequences ensue. Addiction is characterized by a long-lasting risk of relapse, which is often initiated by exposure to drug-related cues. Substantial progress has been made in understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms of tolerance, dependence and withdrawal, but as yet we understand little of the neural substrates of compulsive drug use and its remarkable persistence. Here we review evidence for the possibility that compulsion and its persistence are based on a pathological usurpation of molecular mechanisms that are normally involved in memory.