New Treatments for Addiction: Behavioral, Ethical, Legal, and Social Questions

Excerpt

This report is the work of the Committee on Immunotherapies and Sustained-Release Formulations for Treating Drug Addiction. The committee was established in 2002 by the National Academies in response to a request from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). NIDA is funding the development of new types of medications to treat drug addiction and sought the advice of the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine about the behavioral, ethical, legal, and social issues likely to arise as a result of the unique characteristics of these medications, if and when they become available.

The charge to the committee was to identify issues that will be raised in determining who should be given these medications and under what circumstances, given the fundamental issue of therapeutic safety. This study was not intended to be a safety review of immunotherapies and sustained-release formulations, which are still under development. However, safety formed a necessary backdrop for all of the issues the committee considered.