FREE COCAINE WILL HELP McGILL RESEARCHERS

MONTREAL -- Human guinea pigs in an unusual McGill University study
are being given cocaine for free so researchers can chart the effects
of the highly addictive drug on the brain with hopes of finding ways
to curb strong cravings.

The study -- which at first glance may raise some eyebrows -- was
deemed the best in a competition among about 50 applicants for funding
in the medical category of research related to brain behaviour.

Its author, Marco Leyton, a professor in the university's psychology
department, said about 35 per cent of people who use cocaine will
become addicted and end up with serious problem.

"I tell my students that if Cuisinart comes out with a new food
processor and only a third of users lost fingers while the remaining
70 per cent were satisfied, would that be reasonable?" Leyton said
Sunday in an interview.

While giving users free drugs may be seen by some as unethical,
Margaret Somerville, founding director of the McGill Centre for
Medicine, Ethics and Law, said it could also be seen as unethical if
such research isn't done.

"If you can't do the research, you can't help the people with
addictions."

Somerville has sat on several ethics committees and said rules for
such projects are very strict. For example, participants have to be
consenting adults, must have used the drug previously and researchers
can't enlist more subjects than they need.

The ongoing study, which began five years ago and is to continue for
another five with $120,000 annual funding from Canadian Institutes of
Health Research and the blessing of McGill University Health Centre's
ethic's board, recruits up to 10 male and female participants a year.
They are paid minimum wage for their time and their consumption is
tightly controlled.

"Participants are closely monitored and stay overnight for observation
with nurses and physicians on hand," Leyton said. "We don't just give
them the cocaine and say: 'Okay, away you go.' "

The cocaine used in the study is bought from a pharmaceutical company
in Scotland, one of the few places where the drug is produced for
medical use.

The highly addictive drug seems to turn on many parts of the brain
that are attracted to rewards, Leyton said.

"It seems to tap directly into those systems that say, 'that's worth
getting.' "

Depending on which stage of the study they are involved in,
participants snort just one, or between three and five lines of coke.
They then lie on their backs on a bed while a large, doughnut-shaped
camera uses a technique called positron emission tomography which
produces a three-dimensional image or map of what's going on in the
brain as the drug takes effect.

Leyton hopes to take this information and find ways to lower the
craving in the parts of the brain that go crazy for the drug.

For example, the brain produces dopamine, a substance that allows us
to respond to pleasure and pain, but the brain needs amino acids to
make it. So, said Leyton, if a person is fed a diet low in these amino
acids, the brain will produce less dopamine, thus lowering the brain's
reward response to a drug like cocaine.