evaluation

• ethical issue of free will
• free will - explain

  drug addicts who face prosecution may be pressured into treatment programmes against their will. It may be a condition of their parole that they have to attend a treatment programme, and so they may end up taking methadone or naltrexone against their will.

  this is clearly an ethical issue with regards to the addict's free will, but also could have implications for the success of the treatment.
• free will - example

  Gowing et al. (2001) found that naltrexone is very effective for people who are highly motivated to quit, but not as useful for those who are less motivated
• antagonist substitution could be used for other addictions outside of substance abuse.
• other addictions - explain

  naltrexone, mainly used for opioid addiction could have benefits for behavioural addictions such as gambling.

  any rewarding behaviour causes the release of dopamine into the mesolimbic pathway, reinforcing that behaviour. If naltrexone is blocking the dopamine receptors, it prevents the dopamine from activating the receptors, meaning that the behaviour is not reinforced.
• other addictions - link

  however, the evidence for the drug's use in behavioural addiction is limited at this moment in time; further research may be able to shed light on how appropriate this drug would be for such addictions.
• ethical and social issues in not addressing the root cause of the addiction
• root cause - explain

  it could be argued that these drug treatments are a quick-fix solution to a complex problem, which can cause more psychological harm to addicts than their addiction.

  by using medication to treat addiction, we may just be treating the symptoms rather than the cause, which is unethical.
• root cause - link

  despite the supporting research around the use of agonist/antagonist substitution, this method of modification is limited as it does not address the many contributing factors which contribute to drug abuse, such as poverty, peer groups, mental illness or cognitive errors.
• root cause - explain

  the societal implications of this treatment is that it could be viewed as simply "papering over the cracks" of a wider issue of social deprivation.

  whilst these drugs may be doing a good job at helping people who became addicted to drugs, it does nothing to help prevent people initiating an addiction in the first place.