Results of the NIDA treatment demonstration grants' cocaine workgroup: characteristics of cocaine users and HIV risk behaviors

Abstract

This journal issue includes seven articles (six plus this introduction) from the “cocaine workgroup” of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) treatment demonstration grants. In this introduction, results of the first attempts to compare data from seven disparate demonstration grant sites are summarized: Overall, rates of recent cocaine use were high in all locations, injection drug use was common, age of first drug use was between 14 and 17 years with age of first cocaine use between 20 and 25 years, arrests were common at all sites especially among cocaine injectors, and polydrug use was the norm. Interestingly, both gender and ethnic status were significantly associated with polydrug use and marijuana use among the cocaine users. These results indicated that it is possible to define variables precisely for analysis across sites and laid the groundwork for the next set of analyses in which the common theme of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) risk behaviors among cocaine abusers was agreed upon. This next set of analyses are included in the following six papers. Overall, these reports confirm recent data about the association of cocaine use with HIV risk behaviors. They extend considerably the literature on the association of cocaine with HIV risk behaviors, and the report from New York in which therapeutic community treatment was shown to be feasible and possibly useful to methadone clients represents an interesting and new finding. In conclusion, cross-site collaborations can take different forms and this collection of papers represents one successful approach.