**7. Conclusion**

The use of either selective or non-selective beta-blockers to treat the acute effects of cocaine or methamphetamine toxicity demonstrates safety and efficacy. Avoidance of using BBT in this population is secondary to the fear of causing adverse cardiac events during acute toxicity. Since safety has been demonstrated in recent literature, then the use of long-term BBT in patients that regularly use these drugs should demonstrate safety as well. Long-term BBT either selective or non-selective shows success in the prevention of cardiomyopathy in cocaine users by demonstrating a lower rate of death, MI, hospital readmission and improvement of LVEF and NYHA functional class compared to no BBT use. Therefore, both selective and non-selective long-term BBT prevents the progression of cardiomyopathy in active cocaine users but not methamphetamine. Since a single study has attempted to investigate this topic in methamphetamine users' additional experimental studies are strongly needed in order to determine if long-term BBT can decrease cardiomyopathy in this population.
