On the Measurement of Reinforcing Efficacy of Methamphetamine Using Self-Administration Procedures:A Review & Future Directions

Methamphetamine has rapidly become more prominent in Iran, which is now second most common drug behind heroin. Moreover, initiation of methamphetamine abuse is a major cause of failure of opioid treatment programs such as Methadone maintenance treatment. This calls for development of more effective treatment methods for methamphetamine addiction, and especially development of techniques for evaluating of their effectiveness in a laboratory and controlled settings. Measuring the reinforcing efficacy of a drug during the course of a treatment can provide such an evaluation, which is typically based on self-administration procedures. This article is aimed to summarize and discuss self-administration procedures that are commonly used in human research, and especially the particular value of these procedures in studying methamphetamine addiction. We also present a self-administration procedure for assessment of reinforcing efficacy of methamphetamine.