WEDNESDAY, Oct. 9, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- A new drug called Nocaine may help recovering cocaine addicts beat their habit in much the same way that methadone helps heroin addicts.
So says a study in the October issue of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.
Nocaine was developed through Georgetown University Medical Center's Drug Discovery Program. The study was done by Georgetown University researchers, along with colleagues at the University of Mississippi and the University of Texas.
This study examined Nocaine's cocaine-like properties. The researchers found laboratory animals worked harder to get doses of Nocaine than they did to receive a placebo saline solution. However, the researchers also found the animals expended much less effort to get Nocaine than they did to get doses of cocaine.
"Our study results imply that Nocaine is a weak reinforcer -- meaning that it provides some of cocaine's effects, but at a much lower level," says William L. Woolverton, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Weak reinforcers are less likely to be abused than strong reinforcers such as heroin or cocaine, and that means the weak reinforcers are less likely to have abuse-related toxicity.
Earlier studies on Nocaine showed it may act to reverse the neurologic effects linked to cocaine withdrawal, and that Nocaine blocks cocaine's stimulant effect.
"Our studies have shown that Nocaine would likely blunt the aversive effects associated with cocaine abstinence, enabling addicts to gradually and safely withdraw from the drug," says Alan P. Kozikowski, a professor of neurology and director of Georgetown's Drug Discovery Program.
Phase I clinical trials of Nocaine are expected to start in early 2003.
More information
The National Institute on Drug Abuse has more on cocaine addiction.
