Barcelona

Barcelona is the capital city of Catalonia, an autonomous community in Spain. It is located in the comarca of Barcelonès, along the Mediterranean coast. Population of the province of Barcelona is 5,226,354, although this only covers 7,733 km² (3,000 mi²) around the city. The mayor of Barcelona is Joan Clos.

"Stage of change" by drug problem in concurrent opioid, cocaine, and cigarette users.

Within the field of addiction, the majority of work regarding "stages and processes of change" has focused on single drug problems, such as cigarette smoking or alcohol use. However, the majority of the substance abuse treatment population present with more than one substance use disorder. This article reports the results of the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (URICA) in a sample of 41 methadone-maintained, opioid-dependent male veterans who had concurrent problems of cigarette and cocaine dependence. These volunteers were given a URICA for each of their three drug problems, followed by a repeated administration three to five days later. All the stage-of-change scale scores showed excellent internal consistency and stability across the three- to five-day interval for all three drug problems, thus confirming the reliability of the measure in this population. URICA scores were lowest on the precontemplation stage, with higher and approximately equivalent scores on the other three stage measures. Most surprising was that these profile scores were almost identical across the three drugs tested, suggesting limits to the validity of this measure with this population.

Cocaine abuse among heroin addicts in Spain.

Abuse of cocaine is becoming a major problem among heroin addicts in Spain. Between 1987 and 1988, 75% of patients admitted as inpatients for detoxification from opiate dependence had consumed cocaine during the 6 months prior to admission and 25% had abused cocaine daily or several times/week. These cocaine abusers showed more toxicologic and psychopathologic problems than opiate addicts who did not abuse cocaine. The opiate addicts who also abused cocaine had begun using illicit drugs earlier and showed a higher frequency of anti-HIV antibodies. They also had more antisocial personality disorders and persistence of depressive symptoms during opiate detoxification than heroin addicts who did not abuse cocaine. Based on these findings, we insist on the need to develop different treatments for detoxifying patients with this dual addiction.

Source:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/