ACTH for "H"

The Seattle Vice Squad was rounding up heroin addicts for a medical experiment. When detectives knocked at the door of Peggy, a prostitute, she threw 50 capsules of heroin, worth $6 each, out the window. At 22, Peggy had often tried to "kick it cold" (give it up), but she had gone back to "H" every time. That made her just the kind of girl Dr. John Hogness of the University of Washington was looking for. Hogness wanted to find out whether ACTH would help addicts over the agonizing withdrawal period. Peggy needed help for another reason: she was about to have a baby, and babies are sometimes born with the mother's addiction.

Like the nine other hopheads in the roundup, Peggy agreed to let Dr. Hogness go to work. For the first three days of the seven-day course he gave the ACTH intravenously, then switched to muscle injections. Peggy's response was spectacular. Though profuse sweating, cramps, headaches, diarrhea and vomiting usually occur during withdrawal, Peggy suffered from none of these. Her baby was born and showed no sign of addiction.

Five other cases did as well as Peggy under ACTH; two more did almost as well, suffering nothing worse than mild periods of sweating. Two were failures.

Said Dr. Hogness last week, regretfully noting that two of his cases have gone back to the needle: "The only reason we're announcing our results this early is that we'd like to encourage other doctors to try the treatment. This was a preliminary study and is not advanced as a cure for drug addiction."

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