NEW DRUG TREATS HEROIN ADDICTION

Philadelphia - The treatment of heroin addiction could change dramatically
in the coming months because the federal government is expected to approve
a drug that would be available by prescription, doctors were told yesterday
at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.

The drug, buprenorphine, has been used in Europe for several years to treat
withdrawal symptoms. Unlike liquid methadone, buprenorphine is available in
pill form, and patients are instructed to let it dissolve under the tongue.
Like methadone, it works by reducing cravings for heroin, which can last
for years. The euphoria it produces is far milder than that of heroin.

Since the 1960s, when methadone was approved for treatment of addiction in
this country, only licensed centers have been allowed to dispense it. It is
estimated there are 800,000 heroin addicts in the United States and 200,000
receive methadone at more than 1,000 clinics.

Dr. H. Westley Clark, director of the center for substance abuse and
treatment at the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service
Administration, said the government is expected to announce that the drug
is sufficiently safe and effective to be used without the oversight that a
center provides dispensing doses daily. He said it is hoped that the pill's
availability will lead more addicts to enter treatment by approaching their
own physicians.

Heroin works by activating the brain's opiate receptors, and the result is
a feeling of euphoria. Buprenorphine partly blocks the opiate receptors and
provides a sufficient "high."

In France, about 100 deaths have been reported among addicts who abuse
buprenorphine, said Dr. Pekka Laine, a Finnish doctor who has been
prescribing it for about a year.

Dr. Herbert Kleber, director of the division of substance abuse at Columbia
University College of Physicians and Surgeons, said studies have shown that
it does not cause respiratory problems, a major cause of death of people
taking heroin or high doses of methadone.

Physicians will be required to get at least eight hours of training before
prescribing the drug, or have a specialty in addiction medicine.