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(7 May 1997) DOPA Fiends: The "high" sought by cocaine addicts is believed to be due to increased availability of free dopamine in the brain, specifically because cocaine, among other things, blocks the transporter, DAT, that normally gathers up the free dopamine for storage and later reuse. In two letter reports to the respected journal Nature (24 Apr 1997;827-830 and 830-833) a group of toilers in the nation's war on drugs recruited some cocaine abusers and did PET scans demonstrating their response to the drug, with results that confirm both aspects of the theory. The second group created artificial "highs" by means of a DAT-blocker other than cocaine, and showed that the coke abusers had a blunted response compared to non-user controls, thus demonstrating the mechanism of addiction. Then TIME magazine quickly interviewed the authors and ran a fervid 6-page cover story (5 May 1997;68ff), blaming dopamine as the villainous cause of addiction to virtually anything, from sex to sweets to nicotine. There was one passing mention of dopamine as a treatment for Parkinson's. Neither the Nature authors nor the aroused TIME report mentioned the possibility that intrigues me: If dopamine is indeed the potent link in the means to get "high", why don't the coke-heads save a lot of money, and possible run-ins with the law, by substituting the perfectly legal DAT-blocker methylphenidate (Ritalin) along perhaps with an added hit of Sinemet? And what will this publicity do for PD research? Cheers, Joe J. R. Bruman (818) 789-3694 3527 Cody Road Sherman Oaks CA 91403