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Stimulants are Making a Comeback: The Rise of Cocaine Abuse

by Dr. Hena Mariam on May 15 2023 4:22 PM
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Stimulants are Making a Comeback: The Rise of Cocaine Abuse
Centers for Disease Control reported that almost 2% of the U.S. population struggled with cocaine use in 2020. The extremely addictive substance was responsible for approximately one out of every five overdose deaths (1 Trusted Source
Other Drugs

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).
According to preliminary statistics from the Virginia Department of Health, the incidence of cocaine-related overdoses in Virginia has been growing since 2013, with 968 fatal overdoses in 2022, a 20% increase over 2021. Four out of every five mentioned fentanyl — prescription, illegal, or analog — as a contributing factor to the fatalities (2 Trusted Source
‘Stimulants are coming back’: Addiction scientists seek to better understand cocaine use disorder

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).

Researchers at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC are working to better understand cocaine use disorder and help reverse the national trend.

The Rise of Cocaine Use and Addiction

"Stimulants are coming back. Cocaine use and addiction have been rising for more than a decade, with no robust treatment,” said Warren Bickel, a professor with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC and director of the Addiction Recovery Research Center. “We need some new ideas.”

The study stresses the theory of reinforcer pathology, in which an individual places a higher value on immediate reward — for instance, the way a substance makes them feel — and a lower value on future gains. For the study, researchers will use cocaine contingency management by providing cash or something of value to people who meet their treatment goals.

“When people do drugs, we know they give up their jobs, relationships, family, even their lives, but when they receive several dollars for drug-free urine samples, they become powerful. What explains that? Their temporal horizon. I give you money for a clean urine sample and right away you turn it around. The drugs lose value,” Bickel said.

Finding Ways to Tackle the Addiction

The Addiction Recovery Research Center is recruiting adults who use cocaine for the paid research study on decision-making. Participants will be asked to visit the Roanoke lab 13 times over five weeks to undergo MRIs, report their cocaine use, take computerized assessments, and provide urine samples. The research, which is not a treatment study, is supported by a grant of more than $700,000 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health.

“We are asking people to participate for several weeks in a row, and we will learn whether tackling their short-term view of the future can be an added key to treating them,” Bickel said. “It is worthwhile to explore new ideas. New interventions are long overdue, and there is increasing evidence that this effort is an idea whose time has arrived. It is producing effects we want to measure.”

Bickel also is director of the institute’s Center for Health Behaviors Research, a psychology professor with Virginia Tech’s College of Science, and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. He is joined on the study by co-investigator Stephen M. LaConte, an associate professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute.

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LaConte says it's important to work alongside colleagues tackling substance use disorders and to use brain imaging to study the effects of cocaine use and changes to the brain during the intervention. "I am thankful to the participants who donate their time to come to the [institute] for our studies," he said. "Beyond funding the science that we do here, I am also grateful to our state and federal agencies for their work in helping to reduce the stigma surrounding addiction.”

Their goal is to positively impact public health by guiding innovative interventions that help decrease cocaine consumption.

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References:
  1. Other Drugs - (https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/deaths/other-drugs.html)
  2. ‘Stimulants are coming back’: Addiction scientists seek to better understand cocaine use disorder - (https://vtx.vt.edu/articles/2023/05/research_fbri_cocainegrant_0510.html)


Source-Eurekalert


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