Addiction (1998) 93(10), 1605 ± 1607

News and Notes

COMPILED BY SARAH WELCH

Gene variant may protect against nicotine

addiction

A study carried out by University of Toronto

researchers and funded in part by NIDA and

NIH has found that some people carry a gene

variant that may help protect them from becom-

ing addicted to nicotine. These individuals break

down nicotine more slowly than others, and if

they do smoke, their cigarette consumption is

lower than that of other smokers. The genetic

variant is in a particular enzyme, labelled

CYP2A6, and further understanding of the role

of this enzyme in nicotine addiction could open

more avenues for exploring pharmacological

methods for helping people to stop smoking.

Information on this study is available on the

NIDA website. http//www.nida.nih.gov/

MedAdv/98/MA-624.html.

Heroin m aintenance treatment: results

from a Swiss trial

Missing the sensation associated with heroin ad-

ministered intravenously, and perhaps also the

ritual of preparing and injecting the drug, is

often given as a reason for clients dropping out

of methadone substitution programmes. In

Switzerland, programmes involving provision of

intravenous opiates have been devised to evalu-

ate their utility in treating heroin addicts who

otherwise drop out of treatment. The results of a

randomized controlled trial of a heroin mainte-

nance programme in Geneva have been pub-

lished in the British Medical Journal. Patients had

to attend the clinic for every injection and that

often meant several times each day. Eligible sub-

jects were those aged over 20 who had had at

least two unsuccessful attempts at drug treat-

ment, who consumed opiates daily and who had

evidence of social distress or poor health or both,

due to drug use. To those working in clinical

services, this sounds inclusive of many, if not

even most clients seeking treatment. However, in

practice those who expressed interest in the trial,

and eventually became its subjects, were those

with very substantial histories of drug use and

treatment drop-out. This is an important study,

but it is early days for drawing many conclu-

sions. The outcome measures have the limita-

tions inherent in self-report measures, and some

of the differences noted in outcome may re¯ ect

some initial differences between the two groups

pre-treatment: for example, the experimental

group scored more highly with respect to de-

pression, anxiety, problems controlling violent

behaviour, and suicide attempts. The authors are

careful to stress the importance of the level of

supervision of the treatment, and of additional

supportive services. They also point out that only

a minority of the comparison group chose to

change over to heroin maintenance when given

the option, and that individuals in the compari-

son group were able to show gains from conven-

tional treatment despite previous treatment

failures. However, more is to come from this

study, and it will certainly raise interest in the

question of whether heroin prescription may be a

means of engaging those patients who are other-

wise dif® cult to retain in treatment.

PERNEG ER, T.V., G INER, F., DEL RIO, M. & M INO, A.(1998 ) Randomised trial of heroin maintenance pro-gramme for addicts who fail in conventional drugtreatments. British Medical Journal. 317, 13± 18.

NTORS at one year: helping with drug m is-

use, but not enough with drinking?

The ® ndings at one year of the UK National

Treatment Outcome Research Study (NTORS),

0965 ± 2140/98/101605 ± 03 $9.50 Ó Society for the Study of Addiction to Alcohol and Other Drugs

Carfax Publishing Limited

1606 News and Notes

a prospective, longitudinal study of drug mis-

users in treatment in the UK, have been pub-

lished as a report. The results so far make

interesting reading which on the whole is quite

encouraging for clinicians in the ® eld, though

with some early pointers to how we could do

better. While there were substantial improve-

ments in drug misuse, injecting risk behaviour,

health, and criminal activity, the improvements

in alcohol consumption among those drug mis-

users who were drinking heavily were disappoint-

ing. Clients treated in residential settings were

found to achieve greater improvement in drink-

ing behaviour. The authors suggest that drug

treatment services should introduce or

strengthen interventions targeted at drinking

problems for their drug-misusing clients. The

report is available from the: Department of Health,

PO Box 410, W etherby LS23 7LN, UK.

GO SSOP, M., MARSDEN , J. & STEW ART , D. (1998)NTORS At One Year: The National Treatment Out-

come Study. Changes in Substance Use, Health and

Criminal Behaviour One Year after Intake. Depart-ment of Health, UK.

ª Alcopopsº and teenagers’ teeth

British dentists are adding their voices to those

concerned about the adverse effects of so-called

alcopops, the sweet-¯ avoured, brightly-packaged

alcoholic drinks that have been shown to appeal

to Britain’ s under-age drinkers. A report by Eliz-

abeth O’ Sullivan in the British Dental Journal

claims that the high levels of acidity in alcopops,

combined with the effects of vomiting due to

excessive alcohol consumption, can cause tooth

erosion. She reports the case of a 17-year-old

boy with dental erosion so marked that his

® llings were protruding from his teeth. Six

months later, his teeth had stopped eroding as he

had reduced his alcohol intake.

Congratulations: Jellinek Mem orial Award

Winner

Congratulations to Dr Oscar Parsons of the Cen-

ter for Alcohol and Drug Related Studies, Uni-

versity of Oklahoma Health Sciences Centre,

USA. He has recently been awarded the Jellinek

Memorial Award for 1998, in recognition of his

signi® cant contributions to understanding the

neuropsychology of alcohol abuse. The award

will be presented by Dr Boris Tabakoff at the

1998 Research Society on Alcoholism Confer-

ence in Hilton Head Island South Carolina. The

award consists not only of money but also of a

bust of the late E. M. JellinekÐ commonly

known as ª Bunkyº . The Board of the Jellinek

Memorial Fund also wishes to announce that the

Selection Committee for the 1999 award will be

chaired by Dr David Hawks. The speci® c cate-

gory will be ª Epidemiology and Population

Studiesº . Nominations can be forwarded by 1

September 1998 to: Dr David Hawks, National

Centre for Research into the Prevention of Drug

Abuse, Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box

U 1987, Perth 6001, W estern Australia. Fax: 011

08 9367 8141. E-mail david@ ncrpda.curtin.edu.au

Rich pickings for addiction specialists from

psychiatric and public health journals

I have only just caught up with the January 1998

issue of the American Journal of Public Health,

which was a special issue on substance abuse. It

includes several longitudinal studies of smoking

behaviour, three papers regarding substance use

and HIV risk, and a USA-wide national survey of

policies and practices regarding drug-using preg-

nant women. More recently, the June issue of the

American Journal of Public Health has three pa-

pers on smoking and children: one about ex-

posure of young infants to environmental

tobacco smoke, which points to breast-feeding as

the primary determinant of urine cotinine levels

in infants whose mothers smoke, one about use

of health services by children of smokers and

non-smokers, and one which proposes that mea-

sures to improve teenagers’ school performance

might result in reduction of smoking.

June’ s issue of the American Journal of Psy-

chiatry also makes worthwhile reading for addic-

tion specialists: it includes an editorial entitled

ª Addiction as a brain diseaseº , two papers on

alcohol dependence and alcohol withdrawal, and

a brief report about a SPECT study in acute

cocaine abstinence.

New books from Brazil

Thank you to Timothy Peters, Editor-in-Chief of

Addiction Biology, for sending me two new books

published in Brazil, one on alcohol and one on

drugs. Both are nicely-presented pocket-sized

books which aim to provide information on al-

News and Notes 1607

cohol and drugs in a clear and accessible form

for the general reader in Portuguese. They are

published by Editoria Contexto (Editoria Pinsky

Ltda.) in Sao Paulo, who can be reached via

e-mail: contexto@wenet.co.br

LARANJE IRA, R., JUNG ERM AN , F. & DUNN , J. (1998)Drogas: maconha, cocaina e crack, (Sao Paulo, Edito-ria Contexto).

LARANJE IRA, R. & PINSKY , I. (1997) O Alcoolismo (SaoPaulo; Editoria Contexto).

Conferences and events

International Counci l on Alcohol and the Addiction s,

38th International Congress, 16± 20 August 1999,

Vienna, Austria. This meeting aims to give an

opportunity for discussion of recent trends in

research and policy as well as prevention, treat-

ment and rehabilitation techniques throughout

the world. Languages of the Congress are En-

glish, French and German. Deadline for ab-

stracts is 30 March 1999. Postal address: Case

postale 189, 1001 Lausanne, Switzerland. Tel:

1 41 21 320 98 65 Fax: 1 41 21 320 98 17.

E-mail: icaa@pingnet.ch Web: http//

www.icaa.ch

London of® ce address: Suite 42, 6, Langley

Street, London W C2H 9JA. Tel: 0171 240 40 26.

Fax: 0171 240 40 27.

European Society for Drug Abuse, Hepatitis, AIDS:

4th International Conference, 2± 6 June 1999,

Draguignan/Ramatuelle, France. There is a call

for presentations at this meeting, which will in-

clude papers on epidemiology, treatment and

research with respect to HIV infection and hep-

atitis viral infections, the effects of alcohol on

hepatitis, epidemiology, treatment and research

with respect to drug misuse (including tobacco,

alcohol and pharmaceutical drugs); prevention,

and philosophical, economic and cultural issues

relating to drug misuse, hepatitis and HIV.

Deadline for submission of abstracts is 10 Octo-

ber 1998. Information for submissions or regis-

tration from: Docteur Jean-Marie Guffens,

Secretaire General des Colloques THS, Le Vieux

M urier, Route de Tahiti, 83990 Saint-Tropez,

France. Tel: 33 (0) 4 94 97 52 52/09 56. E-mail:

seths@nova.fr

The First European Summer School on M otivational

Interviewing, 4± 6 November 1998, Cardiff,

Wales, UK. Organized by the Centre for Motiv-

ation and Change, this is the ® rst advanced

multidisciplinary workshop for practitioners

from across Europe and beyond who use motiva-

tional interviewing techniques. It will consist of

three days of intensive professional development

workshops under the guidance of six of the most

experienced trainers, and will include multidisci-

pline/profession workshops, plenary lectures and

papers, large ª ® sh-bowlº simulations, single

discipline/profession practice groups, videotape

demonstrations, informal discussion and op-

tional informal evening sessions and games.

Registration fee £220.00. For further details,

contact: Rik Bes, CMC European Of® ce, S.

Hoogewerffstraat 29, 1223 HV Hilversum, The

Netherlands. Tel: 1 31 35 642 1501 Fax: 1 31 35

642 1502. E-mail: centremc@hetnet.nl.