The great funk god Rick James once said "cocaine is a hell of a drug", but it's unclear whether he meant that as a good or bad thing.
However, there's no denying that cocaine use has detrimental effects on the brain, and addiction destroys lives, but finding a cure means testing new methods and drugs on a brain while it's under the influence.
Researchers from the University of Oxford have been testing an interesting new(ish) technique called optogenetics that may make it possible to cure addiction using light:
Neuroscientists Stéphanie Trouche and David Dupret from Oxford’s MRC Brain Network Dynamics Unit trained mice to prefer a particular location using cocaine. Then they altered those positive associations using optogenetics—a genetic technique in which living brain cells can be manipulated or controlled with light (typically via fiber optic cables). The mice lost their preference for the cocaine-associated environment, suggesting their memory had been rewritten.
Read Scientists Use Light To Alter Memories Of Cokehead Mice here