Boynton Health Service employee Kusuma Madamala said almost 36 percent of University students have used some sort of tobacco in the last 30 days, according to a 1998 student health survey. More than 13.5 percent of students used marijuana or hashish and .2 percent used opiates, heroin or morphine in the last 30 days. While other drug research centers focus on the abuse of these drugs, the University's is the first to focus on the cellular and molecular level, said Loh, who is head of the Department of Pharmacology. The center uses an inter-disciplinary approach to research, Loh said. Scientists from the departments of pharmacology, biochemistry and surgery and the College of Biological Sciences will study the effects of nicotine, caffeine, marijuana and opiates on cells and how the drugs create cravings within the cell tissue of the brain.
Addiction is a disease.
Loh maintained that addiction is a disease just like heart disease or liver disease. Just like research for other diseases, the ultimate goal for the center is to find out how to design better drugs. Loh uses aspirin to illustrate his point. Although aspirin is used primarily to treat pain, it causes side effects such as stomach pain. Like aspirin, morphine is also used to treat and alleviate pain but is highly addictive.