EX-DRUG CZAR TOUTS DRUGS TO AID ADDICTS

HAYWARD- The war against drugs is fought from the jungles of Colombia to
the streets of the inner city. Now, one drug warrior wants to redraw the
battle lines, using doctors and nurses as front-line troops.

Former White House drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey (ret.) announced this
week that he has joined the board of directors of a Hayward pharmaceutical
company that focuses exclusively on developing drugs to treat addicts.

McCaffrey said his membership on the board of DrugAbuse Sciences Inc., a
privately held company that recently moved to Hayward, will allow him to
continue to work on new solutions to the country's drug problem.

"I do have a tremendous sense of pride in joining DrugAbuse Sciences,"
McCaffrey said. "I obviously looked at them very closely because I want to
continue to support an emphasis on rational, science-based approaches to
treating addiction."

McCaffrey was appointed to the White House's National Office of Drug
Control Policy by then-President Bill Clinton in 1996. He resigned the post
in January, but said he still has an interest in finding solutions to what
he referred to as "the single most pressing health problem" in America.

"When you pick up any American problem, at the heart and soul of it, or at
least a major factor in it, is going to be abuse of drugs and alcohol," he
said.

DrugAbuse Sciences CEO Elizabeth Greetham said McCaffrey's membership on
the board will raise the profile of the company and give it a louder voice
in federal regulation and funding issues. But more importantly, she said,
McCaffrey's presence gives credence to the idea that addiction is a disease
that can be cured through medical treatment.

"To have someone with his knowledge, his stature -- it's a huge
endorsement, just to let people know there's a need for a company like ours
that offers treatment (for addicts)," Greetham said.

The company has one drug on the market and several others in various stages
of development. Its initial product, a drug called Zeeblok (naltrexone
hydrochloride tablets), blocks receptors in the brain that trigger the
release of the chemical dopamine. Dopamine is a naturally occurring brain
chemical that causes the euphoric feelings associated with both alcohol and
heroin use.

By blocking the receptors that trigger a dopamine release, the drug makes
it impossible for users to get high from heroin or alcohol. Greetham said a
double-blind study of the drug showed a 60 percent reduction in relapse
rates among the subjects who took it.

The company is now working on a different version of the drug that
recovering addicts will have to take only once a month, instead of the
daily tablet dosage that Zeeblok requires.

Also in development are "antidote" drugs that neutralize the effects of
cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as experimental drugs that work in the
frontal cortex of the brain, which stores what neurologists call "working
memory." If this memory can be recoded, Greetham said, chronic users might
begin to place less importance on the feeling of being high.

Drugs that dilute or block the effect of other drugs have been in use for
at least 30 years. Methadone, for instance, has been used since the early
1970s to suppress addicts' cravings for heroin. Studies show that the drug
works, but is really effective only when used in a structured program that
includes counseling, peer support and life management-type services.

Judith Cohen, Ph.D., director of Hayward's East Bay Recovery Project, said
some forms of naltrexone have been on the market for quite a while, but
they have gained limited success due to their side effects.

"It has nasty interactions with other drugs," she said, describing a bad
reaction as being "like a heroin withdrawal, only worse.

"No addict in their right mind wants that kind of stuff. It's very
unpopular," she said.

But McCaffrey said advances in pharmaceuticals used to treat addicts could
one day provide the missing piece of the drug war puzzle, a problem the
United States now spends about $20 billion a year trying to solve.

"I don't think this is a treatment problem or a law enforcement problem or
an education problem," he said. "In my view, it's always simplistic to say
either one is the (sole) problem."

McCaffrey said legal solutions are slow to materialize because there is a
stigma attached to drug abuse issues that prevents a rational debate among
legislators. But he, Greetham and other experts agreed that a change in
tactics, and in attitudes, toward the nation's drug war is probably inevitable.

"I think the whole climate is changing," Greetham said, citing a
proliferation of news articles on biological treatments of addiction, as
well as the success of the movie "Traffic," which documents different
aspects of the drug trade.

"It's important to get this across," she said, "that (addiction) is a
closet disease that can be treated."