TY - JOUR
T1 - Relative abuse liability of lorazepam and diazepam
T2 - an evaluation in 'recreational' drug users
AU - Funderburk, Frank R.
AU - Griffiths, Roland R.
AU - McLeod, Daniel R.
AU - George, E.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by a grant from the Committee on Problems of Drug Dependencea nd by NIDA grant DA03889.T he research received prior review and approval by the local institutional review board for human research. A preliminary description of this study has been reported [6].
PY - 1988/12
Y1 - 1988/12
N2 - The subjective, psychomotor and cognitive effects of oral doses of lorazepam (0, 1.5, 3 and 6 mg) and diazepam (0, 10, 20 and 40 mg) were studied under double-blind conditions in 14 volunteers with histories of 'recreational' benzodiazepine use/abuse. For each subject, drug was administered over 4 test days in a 2 (drug) by 4 (dose level) mixed design. Drug was the between-groups factor while dose was the within-subjects factor. Test days were separated by at least 1 week. The results showed that subjective ratings of drug 'liking' and the psychomotor and cognitive effects of lorazepam were generally similar to those of diazepam over the range of doses studied. Lorazepam, however, tended to produce effects of longer duration than diazepam. Since previous studies have shown that diazepam has a relatively high abuse liability among the benzodiazepines, the present findings suggest that lorazepam shares this property with diazepam is subjects with a history of 'recreational' drug use/ abuse.
AB - The subjective, psychomotor and cognitive effects of oral doses of lorazepam (0, 1.5, 3 and 6 mg) and diazepam (0, 10, 20 and 40 mg) were studied under double-blind conditions in 14 volunteers with histories of 'recreational' benzodiazepine use/abuse. For each subject, drug was administered over 4 test days in a 2 (drug) by 4 (dose level) mixed design. Drug was the between-groups factor while dose was the within-subjects factor. Test days were separated by at least 1 week. The results showed that subjective ratings of drug 'liking' and the psychomotor and cognitive effects of lorazepam were generally similar to those of diazepam over the range of doses studied. Lorazepam, however, tended to produce effects of longer duration than diazepam. Since previous studies have shown that diazepam has a relatively high abuse liability among the benzodiazepines, the present findings suggest that lorazepam shares this property with diazepam is subjects with a history of 'recreational' drug use/ abuse.
KW - abuse liability
KW - diazepam
KW - drug abusers
KW - humans
KW - lorazepam
KW - performance effects
KW - subjective effects
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U2 - 10.1016/0376-8716(88)90021-X
DO - 10.1016/0376-8716(88)90021-X
M3 - Article
C2 - 3234245
AN - SCOPUS:0024215575
SN - 0376-8716
VL - 22
SP - 215
EP - 222
JO - Drug and alcohol dependence
JF - Drug and alcohol dependence
IS - 3
ER -