A three-state study led by Arkansas researchers suggests that laws intended to drive down the manufacture and use of methamphetamine in rural areas may be driving up the use of cocaine.

While findings from the $6.1 million study involving counties in Arkansas, Kentucky and Ohio were not conclusive, they did cause concern that anti-meth laws may be having unwanted side effects.

Tyrone F. Borders, lead author of a report on the research, said meth users who participated in the two-year study began reducing their use of meth regardless of state laws that restricted access to drug store medicines used to make methamphetamine, such as cold medications. At the same time, the study showed a 9% increase in cocaine users.

Borders says researchers are careful NOT to say that the law causes people to use cocaine, but he said the study raises the possibility that people are switching from one drug to another.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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