The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Tuesday that it had approved a once-a-month injectable drug for use in treating opiate addiction. The drug, marketed as Vivitrol, is a form of naloxone, an opioid atagonist that blocks the action of opioids on brain cells and is currently used in responding to overdoses.
In approving Vivitrol, the FDA cited a Russian study with 250 heroin addicts that found it reduces relapse rates and blocks cravings for narcotics. In that study, after six months, 86% of subjects taking Vivitrol had stayed off opiates and were functioning in work or school, compared to only 57% who were given a placebo.
Unlike methadone and buprenorphine, which are commonly used in opiate substitution treatments, Vivitrol is not addictive and does not maintain opiate dependency. Additionally, unlike those two substitutes, Vivitrol does not need to be taken daily, but is instead administered monthly via intramuscular injection.
The approval of Vivitrol for opiate addiction is "an important turning point in our approach to treatment," said Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in a statement greeting the FDA announcement.
Nearly 810,000 Americans are addicted to heroin, with more than twice that number using prescription opioids, such as Oxycontin and Vicodin, for non-prescription purposes, Volkow noted.
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The World Can Learn from Switzerland's Drug Policy
In the late 1980s, Switzerland saw a significant increase in injection drug use, and the crime and public health harms that are associated with it under our prohibition system. A new video from the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union features a range of Swiss experts discussing the science-based policies that the country has adopted to deal with those issues, including Professor Ambros Uchtenhagen, head of the first heroin maintenance program in Switzerland; Felix Lengweiler, the chief of security police and policing of narcotics crime at the Zurich City Police; and Uwe Serduelt, deputy director, Centre of Research on Direct Democracy at the Zurich University.
The video's release coincides with a new report on the subject by the Open Society Institute, Read From the Mountaintops: What the World Can Learn from Drug Policy Change in Switzerland.
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Cambodia Opens First Methadone Clinic
The Cambodian Ministry of Health has opened a clinic where people addicted to opiates, primarily heroin, can be administered methadone. The move is a significant departure in a country in which "drug treatment" has typically meant imprisonment, forced labor, and unproven herbal treatments.

The program is strictly voluntary. Participants will be taken to the clinic for a needs assessment in line with international standards. The clinic is inside a public hospital and run by the Ministry of Health with support from the UN's World Health Organization.
While harm reductionists and public health workers are pleased with the government's new approach, they said more steps need to be taken to shut down the existing, punitive drug treatment centers. But the government says it has no plans to do so.
Read an expose of existing Cambodian drug treatment centers here.