Risky Alcohol Consumption in Young People is Associated with the Fatty Acid Amide Hydrolase Gene Polymorphism C385A and Affective Rating of Drug Pictures

Drug addiction is a complex disease with overlapping stages and influenced by multiple environmental and genetic factors. In addition to neurobiological changes, repeated drug exposure modulates affective responses to drug stimuli including visual cues. Here, we made a preliminary screening among ten Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP) of the CNR1 (rs806368, rs1049353, rs6454674, rs7766029), FAAH (rs324420, rs12075550), DRD2 (rs6277), ANKK1 (rs1800497), COMT (rs4680), and OPRM1 (rs1799971) genes to identify that SNPs that were more directly associated with alcohol, tobacco and/or cannabis consumption in young individuals (n = 91). Also, affective rating for alcohol-, tobacco- and cannabis-related pictures was examined in each individual. Our results make it possible to select the rs324420 SNP (C385A) of the FAAH gene for further analysis. Increasing the sample size up to n = 185 we found that the homozygous CC C385A SNP genotype was associated with risky alcohol use (p = 0.006, odds ratio 2.38). Subsequently, we replicated this genetic association with risky alcohol use using another independent sample. Risky drinkers (mean 166.8 g pure alcohol) and smokers (more than 15 cigarettes) rated drug pictures more positively (p < 0.001) and they showed a strong positive correlation with drug use during weekends, which is the period in which the first problematic experiences with alcohol and other drugs appear (initial stages of the drug addiction process). As conclusion, because drug addiction is a multi-step process and a preventable disease, our results indicate that the FAAH C385A SNP is one of the most promising candidates for individuals who are at higher risk for alcohol problems.