Narcotics research, rehabilitation, and treatment. Hearings, Ninety ...

442and hopefully develop drugs that could not only helj) the addict butall other patients that had difficulties that were similar to his, andI believe in so doing-, avo could not only beneficially affect the addictionpi-obleni but also in all probability reduce other forms of deviantbehavior such as alcoholism and perhaps other types of criminality.Chairman Pepper. Well, now. Dr. Brown and Dr. Alartin, bothof you have described the state of the art so far and the developmentof drugs for effective use in the treatment of lierion addiction as })iiniitive,but that there are certain leads that do hold hope and promise.What is being done to develop those leads and who is doing it?Dr. Brown. We have, as you know, a sizable research program andthat research program has several facets or dimensions to it.Chairman Pepper. Would you describe it to us and tell us how muchmoney you have for it? i :io"Dr. Brown. Yes, I will. The program for research overall for 1971in this area, the overall drug area, drug-related area, is approximatelv$17.7 million.Chairman Pepper. Excuse me if I may interrupt you. Is yourAgency, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Agency primarilycharged by law with carrying on research and developingappropriated drugs in tliis area?Dr. Brown. Yes. That is our prime responsibility, but due to thenature of the complexity of the task, we work cooperatively with theother agencies, specifically, for example, with the rest of NIH, wliichhas promising leads in basic treatment problems, and with the FDA,so that Ave can work cooperatively. We have the primary responsibility,however, in this research.Chairman Pepper. You have a budget for 1971 for this area, theresearch in this area, of $17.7 million?Dr. Brown. $17.7 million. And we have a table, as you know,which spells this out in considerable detail. But I thought it would beheljiful to point our the different waj's we go about our researcheffort.For example. Dr. Martin is the head of the Addiction ResearchCenter at Lexington, which has available to it an actual clinicalpopulation, prisoner population, and other human beings, peopleto work on, as well as doing more basic pharmacological laboratoryand other studies. It has carried out this research for over 20 yearsand has some of its facets, for example, in the screening of new drugsthat have abuse potential. That is one facet of our ])rogram.A second one isthe research we do on the NIH campus m basicpharmacology, neuroi^hysiology, and, of course, here \\e are very,very ]iroud that one of our researchers, Dr. Julius Axelrod, receivedthe Nobel Prize for basically elucidating how the brahi works. Thisprobably has im])lications for drug treatment and drug prevention.For example, his research shows promise in nniking available to usnew types of agents that will be liel])ful not only in alcoholism and drugabuse but conditions as diverse as depression and Parkinson's disease.This is our basic research eft'ort on the NIH cam])us.Dr. Axelrod, on his own initiative, has turned his team's attentionto the drugs that concern us here, such as maiihuana, and what happensto the body and its metabolism hi the body. We are pleased heis going to focus his very high talents on such an effort.