Snorting vs Smoking

Babuscio, Carroll, Kiluk, and Nich performed an experiment to discover if the method of administration of cocaine affects the success of treatments for cocaine addiction. They found 412 individuals addicted to cocaine who were seeking out patient treatment and recruited them as participants. The individuals were divided into different treatment programs. The experimenters tested the participants' cocaine use for 28 days previous to treatment, weekly during the treatment and and at the one month, three month, six month, and 12 month mark after treatment, to see if snorters or smokers used more. They also tested difficulties in life
situations, to see if there was difference in administration on daily issues.
It was found that intranasal cocaine abusers stayed in treatment longer than those who smoked cocaine, and abstained from cocaine more successfully during the last two weeks of treatment. They also tended to maintain abstinence for a greater number of consecutive days than smokers. However, there was little difference in long term abstinence from cocaine and in the effects cocaine use has on important aspects of functioning in life.

The implications of this study seem to be that snorting will cause short term progress to be more successful, but over the long term the method of abuse does not really matter. So, when treating those addicted to cocaine, method of administration should not affect expectations of success. Also, more research should be done on this topic to see if any important differences can actually be found.
The biggest limitation of this study was that the majority of the participants were either Caucasian or African American; other races were either poorly represented or not represented at all. The other limitation that should be taken into consideration is that most of the information was gathered by self-report which decreases reliability of the data.

Babuscio, T.A.,Carroll, K.M., Kiluk, D.B., Nich, C. (2013). Smokers Versus Snorters: Do Treatment             Outcomes Differ According to Route of Cocaine Administration? American Psychological Association,     21 (6), 490-498. doi: 10.1037/a0034173
Abstract