MedPage Today (01/06/12) Fiore, Kristina
A report in a special issue of The Lancet focused on addiction, drug control, and intervention practices. Lead by John Strang, MD of Kin's College London, the researchers noted that opioid substitution therapy could help reduce drug use where the use of aggressive imprisonment campaigns could not. In their researchers, it was found that opioid substitution therapy with buprenorphine or methadone had more evidence of success than any other intervention method. Researchers also found that there were numerous difficulties in controlling drug supply, but that there still needed to be a better balance between access to drugs for legitimate reasons and restriction to prevent improper and non-medical use. Critics note that the researchers did not mention or take into account the access difficulties associated with opiates, or the amount of morbidity and mortality associated with abuse of opiates. Strang and colleagues noted that many control methods can be expensive and empirical studies have not indicated high rates of success for such methods, though they did find that specific, immediate and brief sentences could curb drug use, as could screening and brief interventions. The researchers concluded the report by noting that drug control policies should take evidence-based initiatives into consideration in future control efforts.

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