The opioid epidemic continues to cause human and economic devastation in the United States and elsewhere [1]. U.S. deaths due to the misuse of opioids reached a record high of more than 42,000 in 2016, which prompted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to declare opioid abuse to be a public health emergency in 2017. Several factors led to the epidemic, including the over-prescription of opioid analgesics, increased availability of heroin and illicit synthetic opioids [2], and possibly progressively worsening labor market opportunities, especially for those with low levels of education [3]. Despite early interventions to curb over-prescription, the epidemic continued to worsen [4]. Cocaine dependence (CD) has received less attention recently but its U.S. prevalence (likely significantly underreported [5]) remains at about 1%, resulting in a significant public health burden [6]. Cocaine users experience mortality rates four to eight times higher than the general population [7] and have an increased risk of suicide [8]. In contrast to opioid dependence (OD), pharmacological treatments for CD do not exist [9].
