For 30 years, NIDA Notes provided in-depth coverage of research findings on drug misuse and addiction. NIDA Notes was discontinued in 2021.
This is Archived content. This content is available for historical purposes only. It may not reflect the current state of science or language from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). For current information, please visit nida.nih.gov.
Molecular Pharmacology, Brain Scans, and Human Attention Spans
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NIDA's Addiction Research Center (ARC) 60th Anniversary The Neuroscience Branch's three sections conduct research into the effects of drugs on the brain. Some researchers study receptors, the molecular sites where...
Marijuana Antagonist Reveals Evidence of THC Dependence in Rats
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For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that marijuana may cause drug dependency in animals. This findingwas made possible by the recent development of a potent marijuana antagonist - an...
Developing New Therapies for Drug Abuse
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NIDA's Addiction Research Center (ARC) 60th Anniversary One of the major goals of drug abuse research-improving the effectiveness of drug abuse treatment-is the focus of the Treatment Research Branch. The...
Using Animals to Study Mechanisms and Effects of Drugs
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Special Report: ARC's 60th Anniversary The Preclinical Pharmacology Laboratory conducts research with animals to learn how drugs of abuse produce their rewarding effects. The goal is to better understand pharmacological...
Studying the Effects of Drugs in Humans
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Special Report: NIDA's Addiction Research Center (ARC) 60th Anniversary The Clinical Pharmacology Branch conducts studies with human volunteers that are designed to provide basic information about the physiological and psychological...
Broadening the Role of NIDA's Neuroscience Research
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Since the early 1970s, NIDA supported neuroscience research has revolutionized our understanding of drug abuse and addiction. NIDA researchers first conceptualized, then showed how opiates exploit the brain's natural reward...
Probing the Molecular and Genetic Frontiers of Drug Abuse Research
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NIDA's Addiction Research Center (ARC) 60th Anniversary The Molecular Neurobiology Branch conducts research on the human genome, the tens of thousands of genes that constitute the genetic blueprint for human...
History of the Addiction Research Center
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NIDA's Addiction Research Center (ARC) 60th Anniversary In 1935, what was to become the Addiction Research Center (ARC) was created as a small research unit at the U.S. Public Health...
NIDA Workshops Advance Clinical Trials of Cocaine Treatment Medications
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One of the most important steps in developing a cocaine dependence treatment medication is conducting human clinical studies to establish a proposed medication's safety and efficacy. Three years ago, when...
Sweat Testing May Prove Useful in Drug-Use Surveillance
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Chemical analysis of human sweat may become an effective method of monitoring drug use over extended periods, according to NIDA researchers. Sweat, collected over several days or weeks in patches...
Progress and Potential Mark NIDA's Search for a Cocaine Treatment Medication
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I believe this country's single most important need in the fight against drug abuse and addiction is a cocaine dependence treatment agent. Currently, we have no such medication. To address...
NIDA-Supported Scientists Identify Receptor Associated with Cocaine Abuse
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Much of NIDA's cocaine treatment medication research is directed toward finding compounds that counteract the specific changes that cocaine causes in the brain. Scientists know that cocaine affects the brain's...
Voucher System Is Effective Tool in Treating Cocaine Abuse
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One of the biggest challenges in treating cocaine abuse is getting cocaine abusers to stay in treatment long enough to take the first difficult steps toward recovery. However, the voucher-based...
Facts About Cocaine Abuse and Treatment
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Source Cocaine is a drug extracted from the leaves of the coca plant. It is a potent natural brain stimulant and one of the most powerfully addictive drugs of abuse...
New Strategy Would Neutralize Cocaine in the Bloodstream
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In contrast to cocaine treatment medication development strategies that target dopamine receptors, the brain cell molecules that are overstimulated during cocaine use, other NIDA-funded researchers are investigating ways to neutralize...
Daughters of Mothers Who Smoked During Pregnancy are More Likely to Smoke, Study Says
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Researchers have long wondered about the impact of prenatal exposure to drugs on a child's vulnerability to drug abuse. Now, NIDA-funded studies have documented a relationship between prenatal exposure to...
Inner-City Cocaine Abusers in Baltimore Respond to Voucher-Based Treatment
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Although reports on voucher-based treatment of cocaine abuse are encouraging (see Voucher System Is Effective Tool in Treating Cocaine Abuse), most of the research to date has been carried out...
Marijuana Initiative Features Scientifically Accurate, Credible Messages
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NIDA's most recent Monitoring the Future survey of teenage drug use revealed truly alarming trends. The survey of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students found drug use increasing in virtually...
Correctional Treatment Helps Offenders Stay Drug and Arrest Free
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A NIDA-funded treatment research program is showing that prison can be a place to begin the rehabilitation of offenders with a history of drug abuse and help them make the...
Measuring Sensation Seeking
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Although often portrayed as the pursuit of physically stimulating and/or dangerous behaviors, sensation seeking, as described by the developer of the concept, Dr. Marvin Zuckerman of the University of Delaware...
How to Order NIDA's Research Dissemination and Application (RDA) Videos
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NIDA has produced 11 research dissemination and application (RDA) videos for drug abuse treatment counselors that dramatize treatment approaches and techniques based on recent research findings. An article on the...
Heroin Update: Smoking, Injecting Cause Similar Effects; Usage Patterns May be Shifting
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Although the current epidemic of cocaine use has commanded more attention, heroin use remains a serious problem in the United States. For example, the number of hospital emergency department visits...
NIDA Takes a Lead Role in National Marijuana Initiative
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NIDA is taking a lead role in the Marijuana Use Prevention Initiative announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala. The Institute is providing the scientifically based messages...
New Behavioral Sciences Research Branch Chief Named
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Dr. Jaylan Turkkan Dr. Jaylan S. Turkkan has joined NIDA as chief of the Behavioral Sciences Research Branch in the Division of Basic Research where she oversees a portfolio of...
Dr. Benowitz Conducts Research on Nicotine Addiction
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There is a widely held perception that NIDA supports only scientific studies of illicit drugs. The research of MERIT award winner Dr. Neal Benowitz, however, demonstrates NIDA's commitment to understanding...
Novel Drug Abuse Prevention Ads Get Strong Response from High-Sensation Seekers
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A strong, biologically based need for stimulation appears to make sensation-seeking young adults more vulnerable to drug abuse. Now a NIDA-funded study has shown that highly novel drug abuse prevention...
Novelty Seekers and Drug Abusers Tap Same Brain Reward System, Animal Studies Show
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People who are constantly looking for the thrill of new experiences and the cocaine user in search of a "high" may have something in common, according to NIDA-funded researchers. In...
NIDA Releases Three New Videos for Practicioners
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Drug abuse treatment programs that work with men and women in prison, community approaches that reduce the spread of AIDS among injecting drug users, and procedures for using a new...
NIDA Urges HIV Counseling, Testing for Research Subjects
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Because of the strong link between drug abuse and the transmission of HIV, NIDA-funded researchers are strongly urged to provide HIV risk-reduction counseling and access to HIV anti testing to...
NIDA Plays Key Role in Studying Links Between AIDS and Drug Abuse
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Since AIDS was first identified in 1981, the disease has brought death and widespread physical and social devastation to people and nations worldwide. An estimated 1 million Americans today are...
AIDS Brings Greater Research Obligation, More Potential for Results
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In 1994, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received 80,691 new reports of Americans with AIDS. This 1-year toll is almost one-fifth of all U.S. AIDS cases ever...
Treatment and Outreach Research on AIDS: Identifying and Treating Those at Risk
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NIDA's drug abuse treatment and outreach research is taking the Institute's AIDS prevention mission onto the front lines of the battle against HIV infection. NIDA-supported researchers in these programs work...
Institute Expands Office on AIDS
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Dr. Harry W. Haverkos To better oversee its expanding role in AIDS research and its AIDS-related treatment and prevention programs, NIDA has strengthened its Office on AIDS. The Office now...
Institute of Medicine's (IOM) AIDS Research Recommendations
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In a 360-page study mandated by Congress, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) makes 46 specific recommendations describing how NIDA and two other Federal agencies can broaden the scope of their...
Beyond Research: Training Scientists and Educating the Public
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In addition to its research agenda on AIDS, NIDA conducts AIDS-related projects involving public education, information dissemination, and research training. NIDA's drug abuse and AIDS public education program has involved...
Basic and Clinical Research on AIDS: From the Molecule to the Patient
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Both NIDA's basic research and clinical research programs explore ways drugs of abuse affect the spread of HIV and AIDS. Studies funded under these programs range from complex molecular-level investigations...
Marijuana, Other Drug Use Among Teens Continues to Rise
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The percentage of America's 8th, 10th, and 12th graders who use marijuana continued to increase last year, according to NIDA's 1994 Monitoring the Future study. Students' use of several other...
Drug Use Among 8th, 10th, and 12th Graders
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The percentages below, from NIDA's 1994 Monitoring the Future study, track illicit drug use over the last 3 years among adolescents nationwide. Each year since 1975, when the study was...
31% of New York Murder Victims Had Cocaine in Their Bodies
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Nearly 3 out of every 10 homicide victims in New York City in the early 1990s had evidence of cocaine in their bodies when they died. Overall, murder victims in...
Broadening NIDA's Basic Research on Behavior
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Basic behavioral research has always played an important role in NIDA's search for solutions to the complex social and public health problems posed by drug abuse and addiction. Along with...
How to Develop a Behavioral Therapy
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How do you go about conducting research to develop a new behavioral treatment for drug abuse and proving it can work in a community clinic? It's not easy, says Dr...
California Study Finds $1 Spent on Treatment Saves Taxpayers $7
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Every dollar spent on drug and alcohol abuse treatment saves the public $7, largely through reduced crime, according to a study of the cost-effectiveness of California's substance abuse treatment programs...
NIDA Reorganization Enhances AIDS, Other Research Programs
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NIDA's new organizational structure has been approved by Dr. Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The reorganization was undertaken to strengthen NIDA's leadership in AIDS research...
NIDA Refocuses Its Research on Drug-Related Violence
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Increasingly, the public is becoming aware of the critical connection between drug abuse and violence. Drug abuse and activities such as drug dealing play a major but often not fully...
NIDA Program Promises Better Behavioral Treatments for Drug Abuse Patients
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What do substance-abusing schizophrenics, women with post-traumatic stress disorder, and women with borderline personality disorder have in common? All these groups contain a large number of patients who have failed...
Homicide Rates
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Characteristics of Homicide Victims Killed in 1990 and 1991 in New York City (Residents Only) Characteristics # of Cases % of All Homicides Age in Years Less than 1 46...
IOM Calls for Stronger National Commitment to Drug Addiction Medications Development
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An Institute of Medicine (IOM) study released in January calls for stronger Federal leadership and a long-term commitment to supporting research to spur the development of medications to treat drug...
Buprenorphine May Soon Be Heroin Treatment Option
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Buprenorphine, a medication being studied as a treatment for heroin and other opiate addiction, has crossed a major hurdle in the process of gaining Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval...
Targeting Prevention Messages
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NIDA-funded researchers are exploring ways to use research to design ethnically appropriate prevention programs that respond to variations in drug abuse risk factors found among children of different ethnic and...
About Women, Drug Abuse, and AIDS
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Almost half of all women in their childbearing years, ages 15 to 44, have used illicit drugs at least once in their lives. 10.3 million women age 12 and older...
NIDA Survey Provides First National Data on Drug Use During Pregnancy
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More than 5 percent of the 4 million women who gave birth in the United States in 1992 used illegal drugs while they were pregnant, according to the first nationally...
Drug Use During Pregnancy
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NIDA's National Pregnancy and Health Survey, conducted during 1992, is the first national survey of drug use among pregnant women in the United States. The survey collected data from a...
Early Childhood Behavior and Temperament Predict Later Substance Use
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By the first grade, or earlier, children show temperament and behavior traits that are powerful indicators of their inclination to use and abuse drugs in their teenage and adult years...
NIDA Expands Its Research on Addiction and Women's Health
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Women's health, long neglected in medical research, stepped into the spotlight at a NIDA-sponsored conference held last September to assess the current state of scientific knowledge about addiction and women's...
Researchers Recount Successes at NIDA 20th Anniversary Celebration
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Some of NIDA's leading researchers paid tribute to the Institute at its recent 20th anniversary symposium celebrating progress in drug abuse research. The scientists listed a number of research advances...
Filling the Gender Gap in Drug Abuse Research
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Drug abuse and addiction among women are major public health problems. More than 4.4 million women currently use illicit drugs, and women make up more than 37 percent of the...
Spreading the Word about NIDA Research
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Sparked by recent advances in opiate studies and other basic research, drug abuse researchers are excited about the promise of what may lie ahead. I share that excitement because I...