No easy cure

Drug company comes up short on a pill for the love of money | Timothy Lamer

The long-term cure for sin doesn't come in a bottle, but Somaxon Pharmaceuticals gave it a good try. The San Diego-based drug maker has been attempting to find a drug to treat problem gambling, but company executives announced on Dec. 5 that test results haven't been encouraging.

Problem gamblers—those diagnosed as "pathological" gamblers—who took a drug called nalmefene hydrochloride did no better in curbing their gaming habit than a control group that took placebos. Some of those who took the drug did, however, come down with such side effects as insomnia, nausea, and dizziness. The company is hoping for better results in tests of the drug as an aid to stop smoking.

The extent to which pathological gambling, or gambling addiction, plagues Americans is a topic of much study and debate. The National Center for Responsible Gaming estimates that the problem afflicts about 1.1 percent of Americans and Canadians, while the National Gambling Impact Study Commission reported in 1999 that between 0.6 percent and 0.9 percent of Americans had been compulsive gamblers in the previous year.