'REMARKABLE' CHANGES COMING IN TREATMENT OF ADDICTS

'Remarkable' changes in the treatments available for alcohol and
drug addiction could be available within five to 10 years, according
to a visiting American addiction expert.

"We are on the cusp of remarkable pharmacological treatments for
addiction," Marvin Seppala told a workshop yesterday, organised by
private Auckland treatment provider the Capri Trust.

The New Zealand Herald reported that treatments for alcoholics and
drug addicts would improve dramatically as a result.

Dr Seppala is chief medical officer of the Hazelden Foundation in
the United States, which is credited with developing the "Minnesota
Model", a leading treatment method that grew out of the success of
Alcoholics Anonymous.

"In the next five to 10 years we are going to have multiple
medications available for abstinence," Dr Seppala told the workshop.

Professor Doug Sellman, director of the National Addictions Centre
at the Christchurch School of Medicine, shared Dr Seppala's optimism.

"New Zealand is a little bit behind other Western countries. We do
now have naltrexone, which is probably the No 1 anti-craving
medicine that's used worldwide for alcohol dependence.

"It's effective and it's having an impact on treatment services, but
it's a modest effect only. Like all medications it doesn't work in
some and works brilliantly in others. There's a big range of effects."

Naltrexone's success had spurred further research and other
anti-craving drugs had become available or were being tested.

Dr Seppala also described US work on an experimental nicotine
vaccine designed to prime the immune system to incapacitate the
drug, present in tobacco, before it could reach the brain and induce
pleasure and addiction.

But Professor Sellman said that there was an ethical hurdle to the
vaccine's use because it was at least semi-permanent in the body.

Capri is a treatment centre for private fee-paying clients. It costs
$9000 plus GST for a two-week residential programme and follow-up
for people addicted to alcohol, methamphetamine or other drugs. Its
abstinence rate at a year is 65 per cent.