OBJECTIVE To determine whether supervised medical prescription of heroin can successfully treat addicts who do not sufficiently benefit from methadone maintenance treatment. DESIGN Two open label randomised controlled trials. SETTING Methadone maintenance programmes in six cities in the Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS 549 heroin addicts. INTERVENTIONS Inhalable heroin (n = 375) or injectable ...

Immunotherapy can provide a supplemental treatment strategy against heroin use on the principle of sequestering the active drug in the bloodstream, thereby reducing its distribution to the brain. Previous studies have shown that heroin's first metabolite, 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM), is the main mediator of acute heroin effects. The objective of the present study was to characterize the pharma...

CONTEXT No effective pharmacotherapies exist for cocaine dependence, although contingency management (CM) has demonstrated efficacy. OBJECTIVE To compare the efficacy of bupropion hydrochloride and CM for reducing cocaine use in methadone hydrochloride-maintained individuals. DESIGN This 25-week, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial randomly assigned participants to 1 of 4 treatment condi...

In brain regions that have been implicated in the reinstatement of drug-seeking, the prelimbic cortex has emerged as a critical regulator of relapse behaviours. Here, the effects of prelimbic cortex dopamine (DA) D(1) receptor antagonism on drug-seeking produced by heroin-paired cues, or by a single priming dose of heroin are examined. Rats lever-pressed daily for i.v. heroin discretely paired ...

BACKGROUND Existing incidence estimates of heroin use are usually based on one information source. This study aims to incorporate more sources to estimate heroin use incidence trends in Spain between 1971 and 2005. METHODS A multi-state model was constructed, whereby the initial state "heroin consumer" is followed by transition to either "admitted to first treatment" or to "left heroin use" (...

The orexin/hypocretin system is involved in several addiction-related behaviors. In the present experiments, we examined the involvement of orexin in heroin reinforcement and relapse by administering the orexin 1 receptor antagonist SB-334867 prior to heroin self-administration or prior to cue-induced or heroin-induced reinstatement of extinguished heroin seeking in male Sprague Dawley rats. SB...

BACKGROUND The overall objective of this study was to investigate neuronal apoptosis and expression of apoptosis related proteins (c-jun, cytc and Bax) in the cerebellum of rates with heroin addiction. MATERIAL/METHODS 40 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats which weighing 200-220 g were randomly divided into 5 groups (n = 8 per group): control group, 10-day heroin-addicted group, 20-day heroin-add...

Heroin has characteristic subjective effects that contribute importantly to its widespread abuse. Drug discrimination procedures in animals have proven to be useful models for investigating pharmacological mechanisms underlying the subjective effects of drugs in humans. However, surprisingly little information exists concerning the mechanisms underlying the discriminative stimulus (DS) effects ...

Morphine conjugate vaccines have effectively reduced behavioral effects of heroin in rodents and primates. To better understand how these effects are mediated, heroin and metabolite distribution studies were performed in rats in the presence and absence of vaccination. In non-vaccinated rats 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM) was the predominant opioid in plasma and brain as early as 1 minute after i...

BACKGROUND This study examines changing patterns of past-year heroin use and heroin-related risk behaviors among individuals with nonmedical use of prescription opioids (NMUPO) by racial/ethnic groups in the United States. METHODS We used data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) from 2002 to 2005 and 2008 to 2011, resulting in a total sample of N = 448,597. RESULTS Past-...