NCSL Substance Abuse Snapshot

Matthew Gever, Editor
Allison Colker, Contributor

January 15, 2008

In This Snapshot:

Public and Private Financing

DC Invests in Needle-Exchange Program

Pharmacotherapy

Vaccine for Cocaine Addiction

Drug Specific Issues

Teen Attitudes on Meth

Emerging Issues

University of Iowa Looks to Friday Classes to Cut Drinking
Brief Intervention Reduces Problem Drinking

Public and Private Financing

District to Fund Needle Exchange

The District of Columbia will spend $650,000 in needle-exchange programs to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS in the city. The decision comes after a new appropriations bill passed by Congress lifts a 1998 ban on public funding of such programs. The city will provide $300,000 to PreventionWorks!, a needle-exchange program already in DC that until now had relied on private funding. The remaining funds will go toward establishing new programs around the city. City officials believe that the investment will pay off in the long-run. “The cost of infection is immeasurably higher in terms of dollars and lives,” City Councilman David A. Catania told the Washington Post. DC currently has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the country, with 1 out of every 20 residents thought to have the virus.

Pharmacotherapy

Cocaine Vaccine

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have developed a vaccine for cocaine addiction, the Houston Chronicle reports. The vaccine, which is currently undergoing clinical trials, works with the immune system to attack cocaine after ingestion to block the accompanying high. Currently, the immune system does not recognize cocaine in the body because the drug’s molecules are too small for detection. The vaccine would help create antibodies which would recognize and bond to cocaine molecules, preventing them from reaching the brain. Researchers believe that eliminating the high will help prevent relapse for those undergoing treatment. The vaccine could be used potentially for both treatment and prevention of cocaine addiction. The prevention aspect has raised some ethical concerns over who would receive the vaccine, in particular children and inmates and whether they can be coerced into taking it as well as whether employers have the right to know who has received the vaccine. The researchers requested permission from the Food and Drug Administration to develop a full-scale clinical trial which would be the final step before approval for treatment.

Drug Specific Issues

Teen Exposure to Meth

A new report from the Meth Foundation finds that a large proportion of teens have easy access to meth and also do not believe that the drug has serious consequences. The report, the 2007 National Meth Use & Attitudes Survey, found that approximately one in four teens (24 percent) thought that obtaining meth would be ‘easy’ or ‘somewhat easy,’ a number comparable to heroin, while 10 percent of teenagers say someone has offered the drug at some point. Additionally, 33 percent of teens said there is ‘slight’ or ‘no risk’ in experimenting with meth and the same number of teens claiming to have tried it at least once. Some teens even saw benefits to taking meth such as weight loss and reducing boredom. The survey group consisted of 2,602 junior and senior high school students who attend one of 43 randomly selected schools across the United States. You can the full report at http://www.methproject.org./documents/National_Survey817.pdf.

Emerging Issues

University of Iowa Looks to Friday Classes to Cut Drinking

Officials at the University of Iowa are hoping to cut down on instances of binge drinking by instituting more classes on Friday mornings, the Wall Street Journal reports. Officials were inspired by a University of Missouri study which found that early Friday classes reduced binge drinking on Thursdays, a popular drinking night among students. About 54 percent of men and 43 percent of women were likely to binge drink on Thursdays without the threat of Friday classes, according to the study. Currently, about 1,400 classes are held on Friday’s, compared to about 2,400 on each the other days of the week. To entice more Friday scheduling, the University will offer departments $20 for every student enrolled in a class where the schedule was changed to include a Friday session. “The primary goal is to send a clear message to students on what it means to be a full-time [student] seriously,” Vice-Provost Tom Rocklin told the Journal, who also stated that this policy will not be a ‘silver bullet.’

Brief Intervention Reduces Drinking

Asking patients in emergency rooms about their drinking patterns and talking to them can help reduce harmful drinking, according to a new study in the December 2007 Annals of Emergency Medicine. Investigators at 14 university-based medical centers gave brief questionnaires to all ER patients, regardless of whether or not they showed signs of alcohol use on admission. Those found to have exceeded the limits for low-risk drinking—four drinks per day for men and three per day for women—were given the option to continue in the study with one group given an intervention while the rest served as a control group. The primary intervention consisted of a 10-minute Brief Negotiated Interview (BNI), which emergency personnel administered to each member of the intervention group. A three month follow up found that the BNI patients reported consuming three fewer drinks per week than the control group as well as lower levels of high-risk drinking. “This encouraging finding raises the prospect of reaching many individuals whose alcohol misuse might otherwise go untreated,” said NIAAA Director Ting-Kai Li in a press release.

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