Review on Oriental Medical Approaches for the Detoxification and Treatment of Narcotics Addiction

마약중독(痲藥中毒)의 해독(解毒) 및 치료(治療)를 위한 한의학적 접근 고찰

This study was done as a general survey on oriental medical approaches for the detoxification and treatment of narcotics addiction. The treatment of narcotics addiction comprises the detoxification and the restoration of normal health. Medical detoxification in common use nowadays is largely divided into substitution therapy using opiate detoxicants and symptomatic therapy using non-opiate detoxicants. Experimentation was done on the supposition that non-opiate detoxicants provide a more viable therapy than opiate detoxicants in the treatment of narcotics addiction, because opiate detoxicants also produce a great dependency on a narcotic. At present, although the medication of oriental medicine that includes non-opiate detoxicants is not more effective in the detoxification than the opiate detoxicants, withdrawal symptoms are slight and few and there is a very low ratio of relapse, so treatment and restoration are relatively brief. Results of this survey suggest that detoxicants derived from oriental medical approaches are safe and effective, though further development of therapy with such detoxicants will be needed to provide reliable methods of treating narcotics addiction. Based on this survey, it is hoped that many more studies will be done on the issue of medication in the field of narcotics addiction treatment.