Forty currently using methamphetamine (MA) abusers, 40 currently using cocaine (COC) abusers, and 80 comparison participants who did not use psychostimulants received a cognitive battery and questionnaires covering medical history and stimulant use patterns. Forty comparison participants were matched to the 40 MA users on age, education, ethnicity, and gender. The other 40 comparison participants were matched to the cocaine users on the same variables. This design was chosen because there were significant differences in age and ethnicity between COC and MA users that precluded a direct comparison between the groups. The COC group was older and predominantly African American compared to the predominantly Caucasian MA group. When compared to their matched non-using control groups, both MA and COC abusers were impaired on cognitive measures, but the type and degree of impairments were somewhat different.
Typical use patterns of methamphetamine (MA) users were examined using self-report measures from 120 MA and 63 cocaine users. Twenty (14 MA and 6 cocaine) of the participants also took part in structured interviews designed to provide more specific descriptions of their drug use. The typical MA user uses more than 20 days a month. Use is evenly spaced throughout the day, and although the amount of drug used per day is not different, MA users use fewer times per day than do cocaine users. Fewer of the cocaine users are continuous users, and they use in the evening rather than the daytime. The cocaine pattern of fewer days of use, evening use, and more frequent doses per day fits a picture of recreational use, whereas the all-day-most-days methamphetamine pattern does not.
Drug courts are popular for dealing with drug-abusing offenders. However, relatively little is known about participant characteristics that reliably predict either success or failure in these treatment settings. In this article, we report on 99 individuals who were enrolled in a drug court program (approximately one-half of whom successfully completed the program). Using, logistic regression techniques we identified 2 significant predictors of outcome. First, individuals who were employed at the time of their enrollment into the drug court program were more likely to successfully complete the treatment program. Second, individuals with a history of illicit intravenous drug use were less likely to complete the program.
Understanding the association between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and substance abuse, specifically methamphetamine (MA) abuse, is challenging, partly because little is known about the specific constellation of cognitive impairments produced by MA. The present investigation serves to address this relationship by comparing the cognitive performance of MA abusers with ADHD symptomatology (n = 28) and MA abusers without ADHD symptomatology (n = 41) on tests of attention, memory and general intellectual functioning, executive functioning, problem solving, verbal fluency, and abstract thinking. Both MA samples had deficiencies in measures of memory and learning function, psychomotor speed and abstract thinking when compared to a control group (n = 40). Additional deficits were noted on tasks involving executive functioning, attention, and general intellectual functioning in MA abusers with ADHD symptomatology. The preliminary data suggests that executive function deficits and some of the symptoms associated with long-term MA use may be due to the fact that a large proportion of MA addicts had ADHD symptomatology as children.
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