Comparing Treatment Approaches

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been shown to be very physically addicting, as there are no major symptoms of withdrawal that the patient is trying to combat by self-administering more of the drug. By making the drug ineffective in the blood stream, addicts would not receive what is thought to be positive reinforcement through cocaine's effects on the dopaminergic systems in the brain, but there is no evidence to prove that it would therefore stop them from taking it in increasingly higher doses, until the amount of drug in the system outweighed the ability of the immunological response produced by the therapy.
Conversely, Mello views the addiction to cocaine in terms of positive incentive. She and her colleagues have addressed the reinforcing effects of cocaine, and theorize that dependency can be dealt with by taking away the reinforcement that comes with the self-administration of cocaine, leaving only the main physical effects of the drug. They believe that their technique of pharmacotherapy effectively ...

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