ABSTRACT
Interventions for adolescent substance use disorders (SUDs) in the community use a variety of modalities and settings and almost always reflect a psychosocial approach. In recent years, the use of medications or pharmacotherapy has become an increasingly utilized treatment modality. Pharmacotherapy, the use of medication treatments, can be used to target the symptoms or behaviors directly or indirectly related to SUDs. Unlike psychosocial treatments, which may target a host of different individual and family processes underlying adolescent substance use disorders, pharmacologic treatments usually focus on a more specific target, such as comorbid psychiatric disorders or neurophysiologic processes underlying addictive behavior (e.g., negating the reinforcing properties of substances of abuse on the brain). The ample evidence pointing to the role of one or more neuropsychiatric factors in the etiology and development of SUDs in adolescents supports serious consideration of pharmacological strategies in SUD treatment (Bukstein & Tarter, 2005). Despite the substantial pharmacological treatment literature for adults, the empirical basis for the pharmacological treatment of adolescents is significantly underdeveloped (Bukstein & Kithas, 2002; Waxmonsky & Wilens, 2005).
