  We investigate the effect of a coupling between dark matter and dark energy
on the rates for the direct detection of dark matter. The magnitude of the
effect depends on the strength $\kappa$ of this new interaction relative to
gravity. The resulting isothermal velocity distribution for dark matter in
galaxy halos is still Maxwell-Boltzmann (M-B), but the characteristic velocity
and the escape velocity are increased by $\sqrt{1+\kappa^2}$. We adopt a
phenomenological approach and consider values of $\kappa$ near unity. For such
values we find that: (i) The (time averaged) event rate increases for light
WIMPs, while it is somewhat reduced for WIMP masses larger than 100 GeV. (ii)
The time dependence of the rate arising from the modulation amplitude is
decreased compared to the standard M-B velocity distribution. (iii) The average
and maximum WIMP energy increase proportionally to $1+\kappa^2$, which, for
sufficiently massive WIMPs, allows the possibility of designing experiments
measuring $\gamma$ rays following nuclear de-excitation.
