She points out that 810,000 Americans are addicted to heroin – and the majority don't seek or receive treatment. Skolnick's boss, NIDA director Nora Volkow, calls the approval of Vivitrol for opiate abuse "an important turning point in our approach to treatment." "Someone who's interested in not abusing opiates only has to make one good decision a month –- or their family member only has to help them make one good decision a month," Skolnick says. Vivitrol's long-acting effect provides a kind of chemical willpower. Phil Skolnick of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
A big drawback to those treatments is that patients need to take them every day – in the case of methadone, under supervision at special clinics. Vivitrol is not addictive, unlike other anti-addiction drugs, such as methadone and buprenorphine Those medicines basically replace heroin or other opiates-of-abuse with a more benign form of addiction. (Some experts say that placebo success rate is higher than they'd expect in this country.) A key study, done with 250 heroin addicts in Russia, shows it reduces relapse (compared to a placebo injection) and allays narcotic cravings.Īt the end of six months, 86 percent of patients taking Vivitrol were drug-free, going to counseling sessions and functioning in a job or at school, compared to 57 percent of those who got a placebo. The medicine Vivitrol blocks the effect of opiates on brain cells. The Food and Drug Administration just approved the use of a once-a-month drug that shows promise for weaning some people addicted to heroin and other opiates. So it seems worth noting a new option for treating the condition.
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