Recent advances against substance abuse

Pharmacotherapy for substance abuse is rarely offered to willing recipients without some form of psychosocial support. Pharmacotherapy must match the needs of the patient at the time it is offered, as patients often progress through one or more cycles of use and abstinence. Increasingly, long-acting formulations of agonists and antagonists are being developed as substitution or relapse-prevention products, respectively, in order to aid compliance. Products which target use-reinforcement pathways are starting to progress through clinical trials, as are vaccines that potentially prevent the abused substance reaching the brain. For cocaine abuse, the main focus is on products targeting the dopamine reuptake system.