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Vaccinated Against Vices?
Smoke Me A Kipper writes "The Independent is reporting that the latest UK government sponsored quango, charged with looking at the problems of drug abuse, is to recommend a national anti-addiction 'vaccination' scheme. Apparantly, trials are already in progress. No details as to whether it would be mandatory. Personally I find such an idea utterly shocking - what happens when you find yourself injured in later life and morphine based painkillers no longer work? I wouldn't be surprised to find existing phamaceutical companies excited by this, having to replace cheap drugs with something new, which they can patent and control."
While this would be a good thing to give to, say, former drug addicts and such, I don't see why children need to be involved. Besides, whose to say it won't have harmful side effects that aren't seen until later?
If people want to "vaccinate" themselves from drugs that they deem harmful, that's fine by me. However, even though I choose to abstain from drug use, I'd definitely not want to vaccinate myself. By vaccinating yourself, you're basically saything that your will is too weak to be able to avoid these 'vices'. And that might be fine for some people. As long as parents don't start vaccinating their children before they kids can think for themselves, and schools public schools don't require them alongside the other vaccines.
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The Two Commandments for the Molecular Age
Thou shalt not alter the consciousness of thy fellow men.
Thou shalt not prevent thy fellow man from altering his or her own consciousness.
Instead of taking care of making heroin or morphine non-addictive, they should start with nicotine and alcohol, both of which are a lot cheaper than any other drugs and cause ravages in the population.
So while they think about far-fetched solutions to hard drug abuses, *I* have to keep struggling not to light a cigarette again, despite the tremendous cravings I have regularly, even afters years of quitting, so I don't have to go back see my lung specialist again.
But I guess fighting alcohol and tobacco abuse would remove an easy source of income for the government eh? Cheap lying bastards, I can't think a a worse bunch of hypocrits than those who profit from the sale of alcohol and tobacco and pretend to fight the addiction too...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
What the fuck, vaccinating against drugs? What next, mandatory chemical castration? This is ridiculous. I'm already fed up enough with the endless war on drugs and now this. When will governments get it into their heads that prohibition doesn't stop anything. If you want to go do drugs fine. If you want to tell me not to do drugs, fine. Then to alter someone elses free will accordingly so? What if suddenly I told one of these anti-drug fanatics that something they enjoy doing is now illegal, no matter how "innocent" it seems. I don't think these people really care about the effects their actions have in the long run, as long as they have the delusion that they're in a safer place or what not.
You're all going to die, and so are your kids. Get over it.
If you don't want someone to copy something, don't give it to anyone.
Yes. Every form of bad human behavior becomes a "disease". The first thing the authorities do is coddle the "victim" of said disease until the "disease" turns into a plague. After that, they come up with treatments that will permanently change
his behavior.
This is the mindset of the modern left, those legions of enlightened "social democrats" that rule Europe and struggle to hang onto power in North America. Their welfare state took away personal responsibility and was eventually found wanting. In fact, it is headed for a collapse, and the entrenched political mainstream will do anything to prop it up a little while longer. Their next big project is to take away people's freedom. This includes privacy, speech, religion, anonymity, association, everything. It didn't start just two days ago, but it began in earnest just a few years ago. Get ready.
See, I'm not sure that drug abuse is necessarily the sign of greater problems any more. I used to, but then I realised that almost every civilization that ever existed has invented several creative forms of getting wasted. Hell, even elephants and monkys have been known to get ripped to the tits on various forms of fermented sugars and berries.
If reality is so boring that even chimps can't stand it, what chance have we got?!
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
It's the usual quick-fix mentality. Instead of asking what problems cause people to turn to drugs (mental disease, poverty, social problems, etc.), a syringe is supposed to fix it. It's the same quick fix mentality that dominates so much of politics, and it's not going to work.
Instead of some people sedating their problems and imposing health care costs on everybody else, which is bad enough, you are going to have the same people doing something else self-destructive and probably even more destructive to others.
And for that quick fix, you risk several deaths a year from medical mistakes (wrong injection, infection, etc.) during vaccination, as well as unknown long-term consequences and the possibility that important future drugs won't work.
Worse case scenario, the immune system eaither mis-learns or mutates its defences, and starts attacking the bodys own chemicals. The body produces small ammounts of morphine to regulate pain. Heroin addicts take so much that the body attems to regulate by producing less morphine. When a heroin adic goes through withdrawl, his body essentiall has no natural morhine in it, hence constant pain. If the immune system was trained to destroy morphine, then the recipient could be in a perminent withdrawl. Nicotine mimics a natural nuro-transmitter in the brain. I would hate to see what would happen if a autoimmune reaction against that nuro-transmitter happened.
Complex systems react unpredicably when disrupted. We don't know enough abou the human body to interfear with it in this way.
This is rather remarkable in that there is no discussion of the risks of such a treatment. Drugs generally work by either mimicking neurotransmitters themselves, mimicking their precursors, or by mimicking other chemicals that cause a release of neurotransmitters. This is true of both recreational drugs and prescription drugs like Prozac or Zoloft.
Cocaine, for instance, is known to work by effecting a massive release of dopamine into the brain, which is then reuptaken quickly, providing the high. Alcohol similarly effects a release of GABA (among other neurotransmitters), while GHB is actually a precursor to GABA itself and is converted thus in the brain.
It would seem to me that messing with the pathways through which any given drug actually works, unless it is almost impossibly specific, would mess with the normal operation of the brain. What's to say that a "vaccine" designed to prevent cocaine's method of activity won't prevent or at least diminish all such activity in the brain? Parkinson's Disease is caused at least partially by screwy dopamine levels in the brain. Who knows if injecting people with a virus that prevents rushes of dopamine won't affect the normal rushes of dopamine that occur during life, like after a particularly good orgasm or a 10K-run?
It just sounds like fucking with neurotransmitters, especially on a genetic level, is a recipe for disaster.
There is a good article about it here. Here are a few choice quotes.
"And, sure enough, in the late 30s and early 40s, in five really flamboyant murder trials, the defendant's sole defense was that he -- or, in the most famous of them, she -- was not guilty by reason of insanity for having used marijuana prior to the commission of the crime."
"Doctor, when you used the drug, what happened?" "After two puffs on a marijuana cigarette, I was turned into a bat."
"You know what the women testified? In Newark they testified, and I quote, "After two puffs on a marijuana cigarette my incisor teeth grew six inches long and dripped with blood."
2004, and the madness still hasn't ended. Now we might even start vaccinating people so that they don't try out these demonic drugs. Jeez, someone get me off this damn planet.
Two comments:
1. For 30+ years we have been wrestling with the consequences of simple Cigarettes! We have corporations hiding health info, playing with nicotine amounts, and a ton of cancer patients and billion dollar lawsuits. All for a drug which by all accounts is potentially deadly after long-term use but is comparatively benign. Unlike, say alcohol, coke, or heroin, it does not cause intoxication and cigarette addiction is very unlikely to cause you to lose your job and family.
Now considering everything you know about the tobacco companies and all that has come out in the past 30+ years, you really want a "more enlightened" policy leading to [insert Cigarettes company] brand heroin, cocaine, or crack? Only for 18+, of course....
2. From the article's poster:
I wouldn't be surprised to find existing phamaceutical companies excited by this, having to replace cheap drugs with something new, which they can patent and control.
Come on, enough with the tired "big bad evil phamaceutical company" conspiracy theory crap. For being so incredibly evil and selfish, they sure have cured a whole bunch of different diseases the past 50+ years. The way your talk, its like you think the companies are introducing viruses just to make cures for them. I wonder if you will change your thinking if you ever have, God forbid, cancer, heart disease, or fertility problems. Probably not...
Just because they don't give away their hard-earned discoveries for free doesn't make them evil. If you don't like it, don't use their discoveries! You can get 1970's era drugs real cheap generically. Good luck surviving.
Brian Ellenberger
Brave people don't mod down, they reply. True cowards use overrated.
You can't vaccinate against morphine ... it modulates ion channels which you would have to somehow remove
...and then you would have serious issues.
Yes you can. You can produce antibodies that bind the active parts of the appropriate drugs, or that bind to the receptors in ways that block them without activating them. These will reduce or eliminate the effect of the drug on the receptor.
Absolutely:
For starters, if it blocks the drugs, what do you want to bet that you'll also block the effects of the natural compounds. Then those vaccinated will be something like a drug addict in withdrawal FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. Everything would HURT. Just sitting around would hurt. Exercise would hurt more. Painkillers wouldn't work.
Imagine one of these kids in highschool - the worst of "whiny wimps" just sitting there. Sports would be agony. And that's before the unimunized jocks start beating on him to watch him squirm.
Then there are the feedback mechanisms modulating the number of receptors, production of neurotransmitters, and production of antibodies. The reduced performance of the neurotransmitter-receptor system will result in the increase in the number of receptors (already known to be part of the addiction mechanism) and/or the increase in the production of the neurotransmitter.
But with antibodies to naturally produced protiens, this could produce more stimulation of the immune system: More antibodies against the receptors. Inflamation (of the BRAIN!) in the affected sites. Possible immune cascade from the inflamation causing the production of antibodies to OTHER self-antigens, and a runaway autoimmune disease akin to a cross between Graves and Lupus.
Then there's the question of what this will do to other behavior. It's making a MAJOR change to the internal reward pathways of the brain. How will these people do in school? On the job? How will they respond to advertising? Political propaganda? Religious indoctrination?
There are indications that psycopathy is the result of a failure in an emotional pathway, leading to both loss of guilt feelings and risk-taking in an attempt to achieve any feeling at all. Is THIS the pathway in question? Will an "immunization" program raise the incidence of psychopathy from about 1% of the population to the bulk of it? Will we have a generation of used car salesmen, confidence men, gangsters, death-squad members, and political dictators?
Or is it NOT the same pathway, but one that produces some OTHER pathology when it fails? Will we find ourselves with a generation of some OTHER, formerly-rare, pathological stereotype as the bulk
of our population?
Fooling around with something as basic as the reward hardware of the mind is NOT something you can do and expect no undesirable side-effects.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Childhood immunisation would provide adults with protection from the euphoria that is experienced by users".
"Meanwhile, experts at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, have developed a super-virus, harmless to humans, which produces proteins that can block or reduce the effects of cocaine."
"The Ministry of Love is developing a simple operation that reduces the drive towards dangerous sex acts by eliminating the risk of orgasm."
One of those sentences is not in the article.
Oh come on this is such a joke. Im not scared for a second that this would ever happen. There are always wackos around who come up with totally fundamentalist/totalitarian/insane ideas that you never hear about again. This country isnt as big-brother as you think, we might not have a bill of rights (but we do have the data protection act and drinking at 18), but the people here have a common sense (usually) attitude, and its always ok to dislike the government (ive yet to see a patriotic flag-waving person who thinks Blair is the greatest and we should back him all the way). One thing we do have allot of is mad scientists: Professor David Nutt, speaks for itself really.
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Speech? ask the people banned to the "First Amendment Areas" that are out of sight and the people who were arrested for wearing the wrong T-Shirts at a Bush rally.
It's not just Republicans, though--democrats are into first amendment zones, too.
The real threat to America isn't John Ashcroft--he's just a symptom of a larger disease.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
The principle reason that drugs are peddled in the manner that they are is because they are illegal. It's a very lucrative black economy the dealers have going on there. Massive amounts of untracable cash. So you try your best to get little Johnny hooked, and he keeps coming back to you like a rat to a feeder bar. By the time he gets so out of control that he is apprehended, he's too far out of his gourd to even provide applicible data about you to the authorities. All the while you're laughing all the way to the proverbial bank.
Make it legal, force clean production (like tattoo parlors, for example), and tax it. The gov't will make money, lower the SHIT out of the crime rate not by making drugs legal, but by disassociating money with drugs and I can almost guarantee the rate of addiction will go down. People like doing illegal things. Life is pretty fucking boring when you're broke, dead end job, creditors railing on your ass. People turn to relentless drug use. I blame society. I know PLENTY of people that can handle doing a few lines of coke every now and again. But they're criminals, even though they are just having a good time, on their own, and not causing problems. In this day and age, however, many people automatically assume drug use == bad person. I also know plenty of people who started drinking/smoking/other shit SIMPLY because it's illegal. So, logic says to eliminate the artificial reason. People are gonna do what they want when they want. It can't be stopped, so why not play into it and stop making people criminals?
Also, the person who mentioned "A Clockwork Orange" is dead on. Controlling behaviour is the absolute WORST way to get around problems. It's a bandaid, nothing more. Governments should strive to create a society where people won't have to turn to criminal behaviour to meet their needs. Not to make everyone a lab rat.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
I blame society.
:)
:)
Please, tell me you're joking!
(rant mode on)
The collapse of a democratic nation begins with the abdication of responsibility. All this "Society is to blame" crap is just so much bullshit.
Every single person is responsible for where they are. Yes, shit happens. Yes, bad luck happens. Yes, there's the lure of "escape" (be it drugs, booze, sex, religion, movies, role playing, slashdot, whatever). Next thing you know, it's too hard to get up in the morning. You can't face life without a bong hit. Everything's out to get you. Why vote - it makes no difference. You're calling in the cops to discipline your child. It's never your fault.
But get this straight right now. Society is NEVER to blame. People are to blame. People who take the easy way out and don't take responsibility for where they're at.
Remember - shit doesn't just "happen" - it comes from assholes
(rant mode off - sorta
Sorry mate - not meaning to dump on you specifically - I just really hate that "Society is to blame" way of avoiding responsibility.
I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
My favorite part was talking about "spiraling addiction."
This is pretty much directly linked to Britain's rise in amphetamine interdiction raids. Amphetamines and cocaine are often used interchangeably, depending on market rate. When they start busting more cocaine, you'll see a rise in amphetamine use, with the re-emergence of mainlining amphetamines ("speed") - on par with crack cocaine.
My other favorite part:
Perhaps it would be better to say that the cost of the drug war is 12+ bn pounds a year. The only way to know the cost of drug addiction would be to know the approximate number of addicts and the approximate yearly public cost of a legal addict.
Oh, that's right: Britain does* have those numbers. There used to be a program for distributing legal heroin to addicts in Britain, and the entire program was quite cheap. Certainly not 12 billion pounds a year: heroin maintenance wasn't even a major budget issue.
I saw a standup comic who gave several good examples of irony after a few minutes' criticism directed at Alanis Morrissette. The one I recall best is,
Irony is naming an airport after the president who fired all the air traffic controllers.
Mom says my