Self-Administration of Smoked Cocaine

Methodological issues related to the self-administration of cocaine and the effect of the magnitude of alternative reinforcers on cocaine self-administration were examined. Hospitalized male cocaine abusers (N = 12) were involved in an inpatient study in which the between-subjects variable was the monetary value of the alternative reinforcer, and the within-subject variable was 3 dose sizes of cocaine. Ss could receive a delivery of cocaine every 30 min in exchange for a token worth a specific amount of money for up to 10 deliveries. Results showed dose-related subjective responses, that the extent of subjective responses was related to the amount of cocaine self-administered, and that the amount of cocaine self-administered was reproducible across sessions. In addition, the magnitude of the alternative reinforcer affected the amount of cocaine self-administered.