The drug and some related compounds are being tested for possible use with humans. Medications to Help Kick the Smoking Habit Nicotine is one of the most addicting drugs of abuse, and one of the hardest to kick for good. According to Charles O'Brien, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Addictions Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia, some 70 to 80 percent of people formally treated for nicotine dependence resume smoking by the end of a year. However, aids like the nicotine patch and gum have been developed to help some of those who want to quit. Most recently, an antidepressant called buproprion has also been shown to help people quit smoking.
Researchers think it works by helping to normalize neurotransmitter levels in the brain.
Some recovering alcoholics take a medication called disulfiram, or Antabuse, which supports abstinence by making them very ill if they drink alcohol. Another medication, called naltrexone, was developed to prevent relapse to opiates such as heroin by blocking the receptors for those drugs in the brain. But heroin addicts tend to resist taking it because it can cause dysphoria, or low mood, in those patients and does not eliminate craving for heroin. It lowers relapse rates in recovering alcoholics and tends to stem minor relapses from becoming full-blown binges. University of Pennsylvania researcher A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D., estimates that adding naltrexone to psychosocial treatments for alcoholism produces at least 30 percent more benefit than treatments without it.