COCAINE 'MORE LIKELY TO HOOK WOMEN'

Female drug addicts experience more excessive highs than men and may
become addicted more easily, according to the largest-ever research
project into gender susceptibility to cocaine.

In a discovery that has shocked professionals and may overturn
current practices of prevention and treatment of addiction, the
project also found that women using cocaine are less likely to suffer
the same cardiovascular damage as men.

'The findings are the same for cocaine, amphetamines and alcohol:
women consistently react differently than men to these drugs,
depending where they are in their cycle,' said Dr Vanya
Quinones-Jenab, who has devoted the past 10 years to researching the
difference gender makes to drug addiction. 'At a certain point it
seems likely that drugs will be more addictive to women than they are
to men.'

Quinones-Jenab found that monthly fluctuations in female hormone
levels dramatically affect the influence of drugs on the user.

At the point of ovulation, women are far more susceptible to both
addiction and extreme reactions than men. 'If you're accustomed to
using coke, you'll find different doses are needed from one day to
the next to get the same high,' said Quinones-Jenab, head of the
department of psychology at the City University of New York, who will
publish her 114-page findings in next month's edition of the New York
Academy of Sciences annals.

She added: 'Women are going to adopt a far more chaotic pattern of
drug use than the men, and this could easily lead to addiction and
even accidental overdose.'

Around a third of all addicts are women, and Quinones-Jenab is
critical of the treatment they receive. 'The analysis and research is
all based on male models,' she said. 'We need ones that show us what
happens at different stages in their menstrual cycle.'

Quinones-Jenab found that, while female rats exhibited more euphoric
behaviour than the male rats at all levels of drug exposure, they
were less likely to suffer the same cardiovascular damage. She also
found that the contraceptive pill affects the response of the female
user, depending on whether the pill was oestrogen-or
progestogen-based.

'This... shows why attempts so far to solve the drug problem have
failed,' she said. 'Although great advances in our understanding of
cocaine abuse and addiction have been made, we know practically
nothing about how gender affects abuse and dependence.'

The findings are so surprising that some of the world's leading
experts have been unwilling to discuss them: Dr Eric Voth, chair of
the International Drug Strategy Institute, said the results were too
surprising for him to comment on and wanted to read the details of
the research himself.

'These findings could change the direction of drug treatment and
control,' said Catherine Ford, from the International Medical and
Scientific Forum. 'We need to find out more about this: it's entirely
new to us and highly intriguing. This is clearly vital information
and we applaud the scientists who discovered this.'