Avoiding the horrid and beastly sin of drunkenness: Does dissuasion make a difference?

Nearly 3 centuries ago, an anonymous English author prepared an educational brochure to dissuade problem drinkers from the "horrid and beastly sin of drunkenness" (Anonymous, 1705). During the past 2 decades, more than 25 randomized trials have been conducted in 12 countries to evaluate 2 basic questions: (a) Does dissuasion make a difference, and (b) What kinds of dissuasion work best? In response to the first question, studies indicate that dissuasion does make a difference with heavy drinkers who have not developed severe alcohol dependence. In response to the second question, the evidence is more equivocal because of the practical and methodological problems encountered in the comparison of different interventions. It is concluded that changes sometimes attributed to specific behavioral and psychological interventions may be due to a combination of advice, individual motivation, and nonspecific social influence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subtypes of cocaine abusers: Support for a Type A–Type B distinction.

The dysfunction and generalizability of a multidimensional alcoholism typological system was systematically assessed in 399 inpatient, outpatient, and non-treatment-seeking cocaine abusers. Two different cluster-analytic procedures supported the construct, concurrent, and predictive validity of the Type A–Type B distinction in cocaine abusers. Participants classified as Type B (33%) cocaine abusers exhibited higher rates of premorbid risk factors (family history, childhood behavior problems, personality, age of onset), more severe drug and alcohol abuse, more addiction-related psychosocial impairment, more antisocial behavior, and more comorbid psychiatric problems than Type A participants (67%). Multidimensional typological systems have had a major impact on the alcoholism field and may be equally important for the assessment, prevention, treatment, and theoretical understanding of other substance use disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Moderation as a goal or outcome of treatment for alcohol problems: A dialogue.

Reviews the book, Moderation as a goal or outcome of treatment for alcohol problems: A dialogue edited by Mark B. Sobell and Linda C. Sobell (1987). The papers were originally published as a separate volume of Drugs and Society in 1986. In addition to the six original papers that deal with moderate drinking as both a treatment goal and a treatment outcome, the volume includes a Preface, a Foreword, and a concluding chapter that provide needed perspective on these important, if not contentious, issues. This is a lively and interesting collection of essays, which will amuse the curious, confuse the dogmatists, and confound the critics. Consider advocates of moderation goals admitting the validity of the disease concept, representatives of the total abstinence camp suggesting why moderation outcomes may indeed be valid, cognitive behavioral therapists arguing cogently for abstinence-oriented treatment (which they do more often than moderation treatments anyway), clinical psychologists arguing that their profession must accept abstinence as a treatment goal before they can expect to have an impact on the health care delivery system, and behavioral theorists openly espousing cognitive mediators and motivational constructs while arguing that their approach relies only on "observable" data. These and even more ideological incongruities are in store for the patient and attentive reader. The most disappointing impression that emerges from a cumulative reading of this volume is that behavioral psychology has not lived up to its promises and promise. Although these chapters make an excellent case for the potential contributions of behavior theory to both traditional and innovative treatment approaches, they suffer from the lack of a coherent concept of alcoholism to rival the dominant disease concept. Nowhere in these papers is there a credible theory of alcoholism, nor are there any clear attempts to interpret the dependence syndrome concept, which has become a dominant organizing principle in diagnosis and treatment in terms of its origins in psychological learning theory. Furthermore, little recognition is given to other relevant variables that need to be taken into account in treating problem drinkers with moderation goals, such as possible genetic vulnerabilities and the importance of psychiatric disorder. To end on a positive note, the reader will find that the goal of moderation is apparent in this volume in more ways than its title would imply. Gone is the stridency and contentiousness that have invited the intemperate critics of behaviorism to ignore its message. It is unfortunate that a real dialogue could not have been conducted with more of the advocates of abstinence-oriented treatment invited to present their arguments. Judging from the contents of this book, the commonalities would have been sufficient to begin a vitally needed rapprochement between the social, behavioral, biological, and political constituencies in this field. Nevertheless, Mark and Linda Sobell are to be complemented for initiating the dialogue. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Drinking patterns in experimental and barroom settings

A discount drink policy ("happy hour") was related to increases in the frequency of drinking and amounts of alcohol consumed by casual and heavy drinkers in experimental and barroom settings.     

Intriguing Cytotoxicity of the Street Dissociative Anesthetic Methoxphenidine: Unexpected Impurities Spotted

The black market for new psychoactive substances has been constantly evolving and the substances that appear on this market cause a considerable number of issues, in extreme cases leading to human deaths. While monitoring the drug black market, we detected a sample of a dissociative anesthetic methoxphenidine, the salt of which contained an unusual anion in the form of bromo- and chloro-zincate complex. Concerning the unknown and potentially hazardous properties of this sample, we performed an in vitro cytotoxicity screening in cell lines of various origins (e.g., kidney, liver, bladder) which was compared with the toxicity results of the methoxphenidine standard prepared for this purpose. The street methoxphenidine sample exhibited markedly higher toxicity than the standard, which was probably caused by the anion impurity. Since it is not usual to analyze anions in salts of novel psychoactive substances, but such samples may be commonly available at the drug black market, we have developed a method for their identification with X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), which also enabled us to distinguish between different polymorphs/solvates of methoxphenidine that were crystallized in the laboratory. XRPD offers additional data about samples, which may not be discovered by routine techniques, and in some cases, they may help to find out essential information.     

Reliability of Ethanol Dependence Syndrome scale.

This study evaluated the reliability of the Ethanol Dependence Syndrome (EDS) scale in 2 samples of participants by using 3 different methods of reliability estimation: internal consistency, correlation between alternate forms, and repeated administrations (test-retest method). The results indicated a high degree of reliability across all methods and within both samples. Inconsistent responding was associated with dependence severity and social instability. It was concluded that the EDS scale is sufficiently reliable for use in both research and clinical applications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cross system agreement for substance use disorders: DSM-III-R, DSM-IV and ICD-10

This report presents results of a field trial of Substance Use Disorders as defined by DSM-III-R, DSM-IV (proposed) and ICD-10. Diagnoses based on the three systems were derived from interviews using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) in a heterogeneous sample of 521 adults drawn from clinical and community settings. Two issues are addressed: (1) cross system agreement; and (2) syndrome coherence of proposed criterion sets for Substance Dependence in each of the three systems. Findings were as follows: (1) Cross system agreement for Dependence was generally high, especially between DSM-III-R and DSM-IV. (2) Cross system agreement was lower for DSM-III-R and DSM-IV Abuse and very low for DSM-IV Abuse and ICD-10 Harmful Use. (3) Agreement varied across drug categories with lowest DSM-III-R/DSM-IV agreement for alcohol abuse and DSM-IV/ICD-10 agreement for marijuana use disorders. (4) Overall prevalence differed for the three systems with DSM-IV yielding highest rates followed by DSM-III-R and ICD-10 in that order. (5) Factor analysis of Dependence criteria showed high loadings of all items on a single factor across the three diagnostic systems and for all categories of drugs. Implications for validity of the dependence syndrome construct and for revisions in DSM-IV are discussed.     

High-resolution characterization of hexagonal boron nitride coatings exposed to aqueous and air oxidative environments

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is believed to offer better passivation to metallic surfaces than graphene owing to its insulating nature,which facilitates blocking the flow of electrons,thereby preventing the occurrence of galvanic reactions.Nevertheless,this may not be the case when an h-BN-protected material is exposed to aqueous environments.In this work,we analyzed the stability of mono and multilayer h-BN stacks exposed to H2O2 and atmospheric conditions.Our experiments revealed that monolayer h-BN is as inefficient as graphene as a protective coating when exposed to H2O2.Multilayer h-BN offered a good degree of protection.Monolayer h-BN was found to be ineffective in an air atmosphere as well.Even a 10-15 layers-thick h-BN stack could not completely protect the surface of the metal under consideration.By combining Auger electron spectroscopy and secondary ion mass spectrometry techniques,we observed that oxygen could diffuse through the grain boundaries of the h-BN stack to reach the metallic substrate.Fortunately,because of the diffusive nature of the process,the oxidized area did not increase with time once a saturated state was reached.This makes multilayer (not monolayer) h-BN a suitable long-term oxidation barrier.Oxygen infiltration could not be observed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.This technique cannot assess the chemical composition of the deeper layers of a material.Hence,the previous reports,which relied on XPS to analyze the passivating properties of h-BN and graphene,may have ignored some important subsurface phenomena.The results obtained in this study provide new insights into the passivating properties of mono and multilayer h-BN in aqueous media and the degradation kinetics of h-BN-coated metals exposed to an air environment.