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Cocaine Vaccine In the Works
martyros writes "Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine are performing clinical trials of a vaccine that teaches the immune system to attack cocaine, preventing it from giving a high. The vaccine is made by attaching inactivated cocaine molecules to the outside of inactivated cholera proteins. When the immune system attacks the cholera proteins, it also 'learns' the cocaine molecules as well. The result is that the immune system 'recognizes the potent naked drug when it's ingested. The antibodies bind to the cocaine and prevent it from reaching the brain, where it normally would generate the highs that are so addictive.'" An earlier story from The Star notes that human trials for vaccines against both cocaine and nicotine are well under way.
I hope this wundervacine will not attach to some of the body's natural painkillers.
Would you vaccinate your child ?
Shakespeare poems - infinite monkeys with infinite time.Computer tech support - a few trained ones working from 9 to 5.
I'd like some anti-freeze to drink afterwards, please.
Next Up on the party's list: The Orgasm.
Ice Cream has no bones.
ZOMG I'msoexcitedtohearaboutthis I'vebeenwaiting suchalongtimeforsomething tohelpmekickthiscrazycravingand theallnightravingand theallnightdancingandtheclubs withthecrappytechnomusic ZOMGisthatablacksquirrel whenisOprahcomingonmyheartispounding wherecanIbugythisvaccine!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
How would this work as an alternative to drug testing? If the vaccines for various drugs were easily obtained (say, 10 years from now), then could potential employers, private schools, and such require the vaccines instead of requiring testing as they do now? Would this be better or worse?
It's used in ophthalmology to test for something; I can't remember what. It's also used in other procedures. Will this be affected?
I'm pretty addictive to a substance myself, and if I don't get my high, what do I do? I do more until I get it!
with all the CIA/DEA money to be made from drugs, and keeping part of the people zombified. If successful, I wonder if this treatment will ever see the light of day.
Ah goody. Another blow landed in the Puritans' War On Fun. Soon, we'll all be living as their god intended, with no frivolous distractions at all! What could be more satisfying?
== Jez ==
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a use for this, as court mandated immunizations of drug addicts who go in and out of the criminal system on a regular basis. I would major issues if the gov was to require this in all people, similar to other immunizations that you get when your a child.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
I've never tried cocaine. Should I?
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Wasn't this a subplot of Neuromancer or something, where the main character was forcibly taken away from his various addictions by having his liver modified to not process the various chemicals?
gay
It's being developed for use in drug rehab programs. For people who want to quit, but are having difficulty, or have quit, but might relapse, this could be incredibly helpful. Of course, most of the discussion is around the potential to use this as a preventative measure, which is a very different issue.
I would probably hesitate to label this as a vaccine. I know technically it kind of is, but people will immediately thing "Innoculation," which I would argue against. This will probably end up being a highly effective treatment for Cocaine addicts, if it proves to be safe, and passes FDA standards (unfortunately, the two aren't always the same...).
I'm betting Phillip Morris will make the first and last purchase of this wonderful product. :)
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
This seems like an extremely bad idea.
- Occupy your immune system fighting something that's not an infection
- Make yourself immune to the benefits of a whole class of painkillers
I suggest just not getting addicted to Cocaine instead.
talk about treating highly addictive drugs and their addiction as a disease, and not a crime
what say them to this? interesting revealing of the colors here
aside: my belief is that marijuana, lsd, anything nonaddictive should be legal, but highly addictive drugs like coke, meth, heroin should be illegal
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Oh, great. Cocaine prohibition produced crack cocaine and meth, crackdowns on ingredients to make ecstacy produced PMA, heroin prohibition produces all sorts of gross things, etc., etc. Cocaine is actually one of the safer stimulants out there (compared to its main rivals, crack and meth, which emerged due to cocaine's astronomical price thanks to prohibition). This insane drug whack-a-mole game is producing even more deadly and impure drugs. While we could be ingesting small and known quantities of pure marijuana, MDMA, cocaine, opiates, shrooms, and LSD, we're instead ingesting unknown quantities of who-knows-what. Most drug deaths are caused by adulterants, not the pure drug itself.
It's an intriguing scientific idea... but there are undertones of social control which are somewhat unsettling. Would children face mandatory vaccination? Or would we merely target individuals who are beyond hope of recovering from addiction?
In the end, it's irrelevant anyway. It's the same type of thinking as trying to make a disc format which is "uncrackable". People will simply switch to another drug: there's plenty of them.
If you really want to kill the drugs, address the social problems and mental health diseases that drug use stems from. It's a corny, overused line, but "talk to your kids about drugs".
Forcing people to do things never works very well. Educate them and let them make the choice. If it's truly the right choice, they'll make it by themselves.
Hmm, would this drug attack strictly the dangerous refined cocaine or non-dangers like relaxing coca tea, quite popular in Peru and other Souther American countries, brewed from the leaves of the plant that can be refined to cocaine.
;-)
And what about coca-cola...if users become allergic to it then I guess we finally would know the secret recipe.
"I only speak the truth"
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Are they giving Coke addicts free Cocaine while they perfect their formulas?
Junkies, get it while you can!
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Ice Cream has no bones.
Think ill of me if you will, but you know governments think like this and Murphy's Law loves irony... Oh how we are penny wise, and pound foolish.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
So it'll be no surprise to hear of people using this stuff.
Hate to sound like Huey Lewis, but why don't they focus on developing a drug that gives you the high you want with none of the bad side effects/consequences?
Yeah, that's what we need. Alcohol kills and hurts way more people. I'm not saying people should do crack, but I'm saying there are others too.
Something like this is really going to help those who want to stop smoking cigarettes... for good.
Here's a tip to the pharmacology companies, however: Us geeks won't like it if you invent a caffeine vaccine, because we will have lost our main source of energy!
An interesting idea, but if you were able to produce a vaccine that would nullify the effects of the majority of drugs that are abused, you're likely to wipe out the effectiveness of many commonly prescribed painkillers in the process. Take Vicodin for example. It's known to be abused and mildly addictive. Now although the vast majority of people aren't hooked on it, would it be worth it to render this drug ineffective to the masses just because of the few junkies that are downing this medication on a regular basis?
I see something like this not being used pre-emptively, but rather as another tool for rehabilitating those who suffer from a drug addiction.
Imagine a terrorist group that developed a "vaccine" that made some other drugs useless and found a way to deliver the "vaccine" worldwide, say, using a modified virus.
If it disabled "comfort" drugs like pain medications, it would be annoying and economically costly. If it deactivated drugs essential for life, such as drugs to treat high blood pressure or treat fatal illnesses, the consequences could be far worse.
I don't expect this any time soon but it could happen this century.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If they make one for caffeine, the whole of the open source movement is down the tubes!
From what I understand about drug addiction and attempts to kick the habit, you won't just "lose interest", you'll be going through living hell for quite a while - your body is looking for something you're not giving it, it's going to be pretty mad at you. This is why people relapse - they remember the shiny happy times, ignore that bad bits about those times and it all looks so much better than what they're in at the moment, so they go back to their drug.
If you use this vaccine, then that becomes impossible, you burn that bridge. But that doesn't remove the desire to be back on drugs, it just removes your favourite one from the list of possibilities. There's still plenty of others around and I think it's pretty safe to say that people who were going to relapse anyway will do so with or without the vaccine - the only thing that will change is the drug they'll use. So that'll be a statistic to look for: What percentage of people trying to give up Cocaine on this vaccine will end up on another drug? Compare this to a control group of people not on vaccine ending up going back to cocaine.
I'm deadly serious.
Used as an involuntary jab to fight the idiotic 'war on drugs' it is a clear violation of civil and cognitive liberty (I'm using that phrase more and more these days, not something I'm happy about). Used as part of a rehab programme, it kills the drug use without addressing the underlying weakness of character that created the addict. They are likely to fuck themselves up in some other way.
There isn't always, and shouldn't always be, a quick fix.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
The anti-smoking vaccine, NicVax, is in phase 2B clinical testing, and appears to work. Sort of: "High antibody responders (top 30%) continued to show statistically significant abstinence at nine months: 9-Month continuous abstinence rate: NicVAX=20% (12/61, p=0.0076) vs. Placebo=6% (6/100)" That's not impressive, yet it's better than most anti-smoking programs.
Nicotine addiction is the toughest one to break. Programs for getting people off cocaine are about 40% successful. Programs for getting people off smoking are about 10-20% successful. Also, addicts tend to "age out" of cocaine and heroin addiction; after age 40, most of them eventually give it up. Not nicotine; people smoke their way to the grave.
One problem with a vaccine approach is that encourage overdoses, to overcome the antibodies. For nicotine, this is less of a problem, because smoking has a limited intake rate. But for cocaine, it's a real issue.
It's encouraging, though, that no side effects of this vaccine have been detected so far vs. the placebo.
The real promise for this vaccine is as a preventative measure. The average age for a new smoker is 13. Only 10% start after age 18. So if this works, a school inoculation program might be the way to prevent smoking.
Perhaps this may be of help for undercover police officers who must demonstrate their "willingness" to smoke/snort the stuff in order to keep his cover. Good stuff!
What exactly is making people immune to certain drugs going to accomplish? New drugs are being created for this purpose (to get high) on a regular basis. Immunizing against one will simply lead to a rise in another, and the drug companies will always be 5 steps behind.
This vaccine seems like a way for the drug companies to increase profits - imagine what will happen if it's proven safe and then mandated by the U.S. or State governments. Guess who ends up paying for these wonder-drugs that are going to be ineffective? So our tax dollars will be used to pay for more and more vaccines while more and more are developed to comment new drugs that come out, ad infinitum.
Do you shoot it, snort it, or take it as a suppository?
I wonder how long it'd be before we start seeing insurance companies offering discounts to people who've had such vaccines (especially the Nicotine one). Already in the UK there's lots of talk of refusing NHS treatment to smokers/overweight people, its easy to imagine the NHS refusing treatment to anybody who hasn't taken these vaccines...
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"Safer" stimulant? The way it rots your septum and its highly addictive nature... only a cocaine dealer would say such a thing.
If they start working on a a vaccine for alcohol I may have to preemptively murder them.
I definately agree with you that trying to outlaw a drug just leads to the development and adoption of new ones, but I don't think that means this is useless. If this was given only to cocaine addicts who wanted (for themselves) to get clean but can't because they are addicted it could be highly effective. If given to every kid before he enters college, pretty much worthless and even arguably dangerous.
Is a wonder-drug that will give people some will power.
</irony>
This is equivalent to having your stomach stapled because you can't/won't stop eating. Both seek to intervene medically to perform as task best performed as an expression of personal will.
Requiem for the American Dream
I would be willing to bet that this does not work past the blood brain barrier. (ok, I RTFA, it does not)
In other words the "vaccine" attacks the active metabolites in the *bloodstream* preventing them from being digested further then binding to specific neurotransmitter sites.
This is not a vaccine at all. I do not recall who said it but "Neurons that fire together wire together", which is for the most part true. There is absolutely no way that a single "vaccine" can undo the years of networking that ones neurons have done to bestow an addictive personality. A vaccine would be something that trains the brain (as in SSRI, SNRI, or other antidepressant treatment) to promote neurogenesis to accomodate the increases in seretonin, norepheperine (sp?), dopamine, etc in the synapse.
This is a novel way to digest drugs, nothing else IMO.
Bought the ticket, taking the ride.
CHOLERA?!!?
Isn't this pretty much the storyline to "I Am Legend"?!?!
It reminds me about mithridization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridatism) - vaccinating against poisons (such as snake venom). It's effective, but it requires constant administration of vaccines to keep antibody levels high enough to neutralize several hundred milligrams of poison.
I'll agree with that. I personally have no intention of doing so.
alcohol is moderately addictive
marijuana is also moderately addictive
nicotine is highly addictive, but it's not incapacitating
here, some help for you
you have to be in the upper right quadrant to be illegal: the special evil cocktail of high addiction, high incapacitation
everything else should be legal (lsd: highly incapacitating, but not addictive: legal, nicotine: highly addictive, but not incapacitating, legal)
only meth, cocaine, and the opiates carry the double whammy of viral addictiveness and heavy incapacitation
such that even though all the lessons of prohibition apply to these 3 drugs too, the negative effects of the actual drugs themselves are still worse than all of the lessons of prohibition
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There's no need for this. Not when a whole *class* of new drugs are coming out around nicotine anyway.
...never never never take a "vaccine" that has a life long effect for anything other then a pathogen or bent protein. For a basic neurotransmitter mimic? youve GOT to be kidding me, scares the shit out of me. End of story
Chantix got me off of ten years of smoking in two months, experientially, not just for while i was on it, but apparently *reversed* the entire psychological and physical process from those years.
Every other time i tried to quit i'd have to avoid bars and lounges so i didn't come in contact with ANY smoke at all. After chantix therapy, I don't have to avoid anything, *i just don't want to smoke*.
I'll leave it to you (i'm already aware) of exactly why chantix has such a powerful effect. Given, i would never never never..
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
I started smoking when I was old enough to know better, and quitting is absolutely brutal.
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Isn't it kind of telling that the primary detrimental effect is physical rather than chemical?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_addiction
x & y: addiction potential and incapacitation potential
lsd: highly incapacitating, barely addictive: legal
nicotine: highly addictive, barely incapacitating: legal
marijuana, alcohol: moderately incapacitating, moderately addictive: legal
only meth, coke, and the opiates carry the double whammy of viral addictiveness and incapacitation
such that even though the lessons of prohibition apply to all drugs, only these 3 drugs with the special double combo have real world effects worse than the negative effects of prohibition, and only those 3 therefore should remain illegal
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Safer within context. Btw, "only a cocaine dealer would say such a thing" is an ad hominem attack. Thanks for playing.
- identify coke users
... something good old George did not imagine when he wrote the book.
- apply vaccine forcibly
They are criminals - aren't they?
Won't fly though because many high wheelers use it as well and they will pull strings.
So - who will be caught in this?
And what else on immune-system-changing - or DNS - agents will be in that cocktail?
What a great way to get rid of "scum"...
It's exactly these sorts of vaccinations which mutate and go horribly wrong, leaving the surviving population nothing but roaming, ravenous zombies, avoiding sunlight and eating the few unaffected survivors. I know what I'm talking about. Stay away from this! When you're stuck in an abandoned shack and the zombies are beating down the door about to eat you, don't say I didn't warn you!
Who said Freedom was Fair?
As someone who smokes and has been trying to give it up for years... I am all for the Idea of a vaccine for nicotine, but as I said "the Idea" of a vaccine is interesting but the actual application of such a drug would be terrifying to me. What else are the going to try to inoculate me against? On the note of the cocaine vaccine, I do party but don't mess with anything harsh (generally alcohol, specifically Jagermeister) but I do hang around alot of people who "PARTY" and I have already spoken to a couple of them since first reading this, their responses were the same... they would switch to something else if they couldn't do their "party-favor of choice" Where is this going to lead, they will keep coming out with vaccines and people will keep going to the next level to get their fix, eventually leading to messing with VERY dangerous drugs... Just my opinion: Stop this before it gets out of hand, people MUST learn how to cope again without drugs and parents are responsible for more than you may think.
but are you high?
Remember not that long ago, CHANTIX was the brave new way to kick the smoking habit... until about 30% of the users of this wonder drug started reporting psychotic episodes, and other vaguely torturous symptoms.
That someone found a way to attack the high from cocaine is interesting in the same way that it was interesting when they found they could subdue uncontrollable patients with EST or frontal lobotomy surgery. When it is proven safer than taking aspirin or perhaps eating ice cream, then we can start thinking about it's future uses.
The fact that CHANTIX causes psychotic episodes in so many people means literally that we do not yet understand how the chemical soup in our brains really works. Given a chance, I'd veto the use of this method until it is shown to be safer than eating at McDonald's.
Trust me when I say the pains of withdraw symptoms of nicotine are FAR better than psychotic episodes and not knowing if you are dreaming or awake. The ONLY reason for inventing a vaccine against cocaine is social control or making billions off of the government for their use of it on convicted cocaine users. The latter is the better option as it will provide a continuing revenue stream for the company that successfully patents the vaccine.
Yes, that is what I said. There is no noble intent here. This is yet another big pharma plan to make billions off of the government and people who can ill afford it. Like others have said, what else will it affect? There are tons of related chemicals in life that we really want to keep around that look a lot like cocaine inside the brain. You know that guy on the street corner still wearing his anti-agent orange shirt? Do you want to be him in 30 years?
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Wonder what the effects of this on ADD medication will be...
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because you are risking other people's lives as well as your own
likewise, you don't have the right to risk turning yourself into a zombie addict that society must provide food and housing for
freedom is a concept that is constantly in tension with other people's freedoms
for exmaple: your freedom to smoke tobacco. well, what baout my freedom not to have to inhale smoky air?
if you can articulate a concept of freedom and drug use that does not imply that you are decreasing the freedoms of those around you, you have a valid argument
but if you leave the freedom of nonaddicts, who are forced to care for addicts, out of your formulation on a discussion of freedom, you have an invalid grasp on the philosophy of natural inherent freedom
in other words, my argument, in forcing people off cocaine, is actually more in line with a solid understanding of people's inherent freedoms, than your pov is
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is interesting. Though it's not going to stop drug addicts. If you have ever talked to any addict, in the beginning they might of had a preference for the drug they used but in the end, they dont care what type it is. As long as they get high from it....
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=methamphetamine+addiction
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's very difficult to understand the nature of addiction even if you are addicted.
With nicotine it's the curiosity, stupidity or thousand different things that make people start smoking. First couple of cigarettes actually give you high by stimulating acetylcholine receptors. Then dependency gradually develops and it's too late to make conscious choice to quit smoking.
This vaccine doesn't modify behaviour. If given before the first contact with nicotine it will cause the "nicotine high" to never apear and consequently will prevent the dependency from developing.
Remember, it's much easier, and cheaper to prevent the addiction from developing, that to cure it afterwards. And time and again it's been proven, that PR campaigns like "just say no" simply don't work. Our kids will try cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, no matter how hard we try. What better gift to give them, than the real freedom of choice, by making sure that they will never get hooked up?
Robert
(father, addicted from nicotine (active), alcohol (sober), GABA agonists (sober))
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
This sounds similar in use, I have absolutely no clue about the pharmacology involved, to Suboxone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suboxone and antabuse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antabuse. This is fairly second hand knowledge, my fiancee is a drug and alcohol counselor, but I thought I'd share.
I ought to do my own research I guess.
Interesting/Amusing/Scary that the first hit is a site run by Narconon...
Man my nose hurts
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I expected some responses to this topic to be against the notion of the vaccine on the basis of 'OMG Next they come for anything else that is fun'. But the number of those responses surprises me.
Now, I am sure there are many people on this site who (gasp!) smoke marijuanna. And I am sure there are people here who like to cap their weekends here with hookers and blow. And I am sure they also have such many wonderful stories as "I put a half kilo up my nose every week and I am a fully productive member of society". To all of those people, I say the following:
Get a clue.
For one, I highly doubt westernized society would be quick to start to inflict any form of medical procedure on someone who does not wish it. We let plenty of idiots choose not to vaccinate their children against measles and the like. I am sure plenty of nutjobs out there would like to see an anti-cocaine vaccine be made manditory, but I do not think it will happen.
For another, I am also sure there are plenty of people who would like to end their addictions, but find themsleves unable to. I do not think that there are many people out there who would wake up one day and say "Wow, I really wish I was still addicted to cocaine."
I agree, however, that there is danger in this vaccine in that it can also affect a lot of anesthetic's used for medical purposes. That danger should be very carefully looked into.
END COMMUNICATION
Chantix worked for you, but does it work for everybody? A quick Google search suggests that its side effects can include psychotic disorder and hallucination. That sounds like something you would want an alternative to.
What sound do people on rollercoasters make? Hint: it's not Xbox 360.
Dumbass
It seems that you showed some moderator a mirror and he didn't like what he saw.
Yeah, um, dude? That's exactly what a well-timed phillip morris internet campaign WOULD put out there for you to read. Honestly, i've seen so many postive reports that i am 100% sure that phillip morris and crew are 1) aware of it and b) scared shitless by it.
Please don't turn your back on such a miracle effect. And i don't use that word often. And don't think companies wouldnt pay people to post scare mongering topics on this either. They would.
Consider.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
it's right up there in the declaration of independence, produced by a bunch of men closer to an actual purtanical influence than anyone alive today
what the founding fathers knew about natural freedoms, which many drug proponents forget, is that all natural freedoms are in natural tension with other people's natural freedoms
for example, you are not free to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre: you risk my life
you are not free to smoke in offices now, because it is a natural right an dfreedom of mine to breathe fresh air as a nonsmoker
you are also not free to drive 120 mph on the highway, bceause you put the lives of people other than yourself in jeopardy
likewise, users of highly addictive substances risk turning themselves into wards of the state that my taxes must feed and clothe
so please, pursue happiness in all the ways happiness can be pursued, except for one class of actions: pursuits of happiness that are sought at the expense of my misery
and that's what you do when you risk addiction. you risk your ability to function and support yourself, risking you turning yourself into a zombie i and society must house and clothe. you decrease my freedom
so you don't get to take coke. sorry
this argument brought to you by a better understanding of happiness and natural freedom than you possess: it exists in a tension with other people's happiness and freedoms
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: i worship these concepts
and in that worship, i know that you don't get to reduce my life or my liberty to pursue your happiness
that you don't understand how pursuing risky pursuits that flirt with drug addiction reduces my freedom is not a valid excuse
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The only positive outlet of this research I can foresee is the unfortunate infants born to crack-addicted mothers. As for cocaine addicted adults, I couldn't care less and this research seems like a waste of medical research resources in that regard.
I've never done ANY drugs and have no desire to. So lets say as someone suggested this could be used for employment. (That's wrong on so many levels) I still wouldn't take vaccines for the top 10 drugs or whatever since you never know if in the future I'm going to need some sort of related chemical. What if I'm in an accident and none of the painkillers work anymore? Not too smart to go shutting off all the "bad" receptors I think.
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... would be that recipients of such a vaccine are not going to stop consuming cocaine -- they'll just take more of it to get a high. And they may end up taking such dangerously high levels that they kill themselves (whereas before, they would have stopped at smaller doses once they had achieved their high).
Instead of addressing the symptoms, the world really should have been attacking the problems: working to raise education and the standards of living in countries like Columbia, and helping those countries crack down on the production of the stuff in the first place.
HHHMMM, So -- they will probably invent a vaccine that eliminates ALL euphoria -- whether from drugs, food, or even a "natural high". This will prevent any of us from feeling better than the others. Think "Harrison Bergeron". We really all should feel and think exactly the same as everyone else.
Actually, I am waiting for the "permanent drug" - you take it once, the body NEVER eliminates it, and you feel the uplifting euphoric phase FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
If I understand this correctly, this will prevent cocaine users from getting high. But how does it affect the LD50 (dosage sufficient to kill 50% of the population)?
A cocaine user decides to get high after being "immunized." He snorts a few lines. Huh. Nothing. So he snorts more and more... at some point I am willing to wager he will suffer cardiac arrest or some other life-threatening problem on his quest towards getting high. If the LD50 is not much changed, this may occur pretty easily.
Also, cocaine has a very rapid onset. I am thinking it wouldn't take much to overwhelm the slower immune system response.
This is an interesting experiment as it is always worthwhile to better understand the immune system, but I think this would be a Real Bad Idea to actually implement. Unless the objective is to kill all cocaine users.
Sell all my holdings in coca and invest in opium poppies. Just business as usual...
I take Cocaine for the high not for the shit feeling in the morning, why cant they fix that instead?
In eye surgery (i.e. corneal transplants & repairs, cataract surgery, etc) a cocaine solution is the most effective topical anesthetic that exists, and is the drug of choice. In fact, the only valid medical use for which cocaine is still FDA and DEA approved is for opthalmologic procedures and it's the only topical anesthetic which works worth a damn in the eye. All the other substitutes are so weak on the eye, they're a bad joke.
This vaccine would render eye surgery extremely painful for anyone who had taken it, unless the surgeon puts the patient under general anesthesia with something like fentanyl. It would eliminate the prospect of outpatient eye surgery for these people. And yes, I've had so-called "outpatient" oral surgery where I was put under with fentanyl, but there was absolutely no way I could drive myself home after waking up from the fentanyl, I even needed help walking to the car, and had a bad anesthetic hangover for the whole next day. In contrast, my father had cataract surgery once, where they used cocaine solution as the anesthetic, and he walked out of the clinic just fine, and felt good enough and was capable enough to drive with the one eye patched, but I wouldn't let him drive, of course (keep in mind that he was already accustomed to driving with one eye since the cataracts in his bad eye effectively made him blind in that eye).
Why is it that you think any drug at all should be illegal?
As far as I'm concerned, let people screw up if they want to. The organized crime surrounding the drugs is worse than the drugs themselves -- or haven't we learned from Prohibition?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
if i play halo all day instead of working, that's a choice
a nagging voice in my head that compels me to seek more incapacitating drug is not a choice
an addict therefore is not making a choice, an addict is a slave to a chemical
so a further argument against drug addiction from the point of view of natural freedom is that it is incompatible with the concep tof championing freedom to choose to do something which permanently incapacitates your right to be free
do you have a right to choose to be a slave? i say philosophically that you do not
as for the rest of your argument:
"You do not have a duty to provide food or housing or other such niceties for yourself"
wrong
you have that duty, from a point of view of natural rights and freedoms (and the lesser, unmentioned, but equally important, natural resaponsibilities)
go ahead, ask a champion of liberty: ask any libertarian
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's funy how you are distinguishing between cocaine and crack - even the government that you are railing against has recognized that there is no real distinction. Crack is no more dangerous than powder cocaine; distinctions between the 2 have more to do with race and class than biochemistry.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Kids start smoking to:
1) rebel, by doing something that they are not supposed to -- biggest reason
2) look cooler
3) look older
4) fit in with their friends
I have smoked nicotine before (but never cigarettes). It was only in a social setting as a nice way to sit around and hang out with friends. Of course, this was after age 18, so I wasn't being a rebel, and consequently, never did it enough to get addicted.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
lidocaine (aka xylocaine) and procaine (aka novocaine) are chemically different than cocaine (although they all have a similar local anethestic effect).
Technically lidocaine is a amino-amide anesthetic (you can tell with the l-i-do prefix) whereas procaine, cocaine, tetracaine, and benzocaine are amino-ester anesthetics. The amino-ester anesthetics aren't very commonly used in medical procedures these days because they break down in the blood to PABA which some people are alergic to whereas most people aren't allergic to lidocane (or bupivacaine, mepivacaine and prilocaine which are other popular amino-amide anesthetics).
I don't exactly know what this vaccine does, but since the chemical formulas are quite different between lidocaine and cocaine, it isn't obvious that your dentist visit would necessarily be more painful if she/he gave you a lidocaine shot...
Nice story, but the plural of "anecdote" is not "data".
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
"I am Legend" should be a good insight into what drug companies *could* do to the world with their vaccines.
I also agree, this does not cure anything, but masks the root cause of the issue. Just like a lazy developer will do when their code leaks memory. "Throw more RAM at it" How about we just fix the issue? MMMkay?
1. if you become an addict, you screw up my life as well as tyour own, because now i have to feed and clothe a zombie
2. the lessons of prohibition about the mafia is 100% true. i appreciate and acknowledge all of them. and it applies to marijuana, alcohol, nicotine, lsd, etc.: these drugs should be legal. however, substances that are both highly incapacitating AND highly addictive at the same time have negative effects so viral and devastating that the legalization of these substances (heroin, coke, meth) outweigh all the negatives of prohibition. it's a choice between the lesser of two evils. for most drugs, legalization is the lesser evil. for certian highly addictive and inebriating substances, it is prohibition
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
religious side... Baylor University... [www.baylor.edu] - Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas and affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Baylor is the oldest institution of higher learning in continuous operation in the state and the largest Baptist university in the world. While remaining true to its heritage, Baylor has grown to almost 14,000 students, and its nationally recognized academic divisions provide 150 baccalaureate degree programs at the undergraduate level. The University also offers 76 master's and 22 doctoral programs, two educational specialists, juris doctor, master of divinity and doctor of ministry. The 735-acre campus is located on the banks of the Brazos River in Waco, Texas, a metropolitan area of over 200,000 people.
A drug addict is still free to make the choice, its just a damn hard choice. If they weren't free to make a choice, nothing short of killing them could bring about your desired goals. If you believe an addict can ever be free, then you admit they have a choice.
A libertarian would say that a person who cannot provide housing or food for themselves should go cold and starving, but we are liberals, not libertarians and believe in positive as well as negative rights. Still, positive rights do not create a duty... they are effectively government provided charities, and you cannot force a free man to go against his will because you believe it will mean he may one day require your charity. Otherwise, your positive rights become communism, and we may as well force people to work the jobs we think they are best suited for, lest they fall on our warm hearted charity.
"The historical data shows quite clearly that legal heroin, amphetamines and cocaine did not particularly cause any great social problems for most people"
heroin addiction as a tool of war
sounds like a social problem for china under the mandarins, no?
all natural freedoms are in natural tension with the freedoms of others
for example: your right to smoke versus my right to breathe smokeless air
the solution is you have to smoke where i can't smell your smoke
i have a right not to have to clothe and feed zombies
but there is no way to take coke/ heroin/ meth without risking addiction
therefore, in the name of a better understand of natural freedom than you seem to possess, it is right to make substances that are highly addictive and highly incapacitating at the same time illegal (therefore excluding isd, not addictive, and nicotine, not incapacitating)
it always amazed and perplexed me to see people argue, in the name of freedom, for substances that turn you into a slave
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Thank you for bringing this up. Because all drugs are illegal, sellers try to sell the most expensive thing, ie: the most potent stuff. This can be transported easier because people need less of it, and they can sell less to make a profit. Legalizing just marijuana would cut down on the usage of other drugs by so much, not to mention take power away from gangs.
But, drugs are bad, m'kay. Meet the America that would rather gang violence over someone enjoying marijuana after a long day.
Pin-hole burns
The Reverend John Pickett and the damage done covered this seven years ago, when they were working on nicotine.
please choke to death on your vomit
k thx
"A drug addict is still free to make the choice, its just a damn hard choice."
that's wonderful doublespeak for admitting that drug addiction impairs your freedom
you keep championing slavery, i'll keep championing freedom
agreed?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You're an idiot.
Drug addiction is a serious disease and there are a lot of people out there who want to stop but lack the willpower. It's not just a matter of being weak; many drugs take an incredible amount of will to overcome, more than the average person can muster. If someone wants to kick their cocaine habit, this vaccine could help them.
If anyone starts proposing that this should be made mandatory, then you can start to whine about the war on drugs. But right now this is a very promising and well thought-out treatment which doesn't deserve your mindlessly misdirected jabs.
Now, now. For those of you afraid that anti-drug vaccines could become mandatory, rest assured the CIA would never allow that to happen. It would severely hamper their fund raising for wetworks, proxy wars, terrorist groups, coups, etc.
It conflicts with the business interests of a politician's donors.
#1 A drug addict is a total slave, and can never free themselves (even with help).
#2 A drug addict is not a total slave, and still has a choice to free themselves.
If you chose #1, then all addicts are forever and completely lost and according to you may be justly executed. If you chose #2, then you invalidate your argument.
Just because something is hard to do does not mean there is no freedom of choice.
So, which is it?
Don't forget the obvious. There are people that will *gasp* purposefully lie to you on the internets. I'm suggesting that you and others NOT FORGET that such a motive is plausible and possible.
I'm offering a first person experience. Of interest, the only side effect I got was my lifetime's only wet dream. And as side effects go, i liked it.
What I am saying is, don't be afraid of trying it because of a smear campaign. Go read about it - most of all, try it if you're a smoker that can't quit because OBVIOUSLY taking chantix is NOT AS BAD AS SMOKING ITSELF. talk about side effects! geez.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
> Isn't it kind of telling that the primary detrimental effect is physical rather than chemical?
And what non-physical chemicals do you deal with, exactly?
Or are you trying to describe the difference between something that makes you temporarily insane vs. something that eats holes in your nose? The only thing I find "telling" here is that "recreational" chemistry is no substitute for real chemistry courses.
Do they really think that a "vaccine" against nicotine is going to help people? If they're already addicted to nicotine for years and years, aren't they going to continue smoking and either make themselves really sick (as their immune systems attempt to fight off the nicotine) or just keep smoking away?
...which found that while 95% of clean shaven men find shaving a terrible bore, only 3% would consider taking a pill that would stop beard growth forever.. (or somesuch)
Personally I can think of nothing worse than getting no buzz from the occasional free coke that I get offered. (as if id buy it myself, at typical street prices!!)
Is it really so selective that it prevents getting a high from cocaine, yet does not diminish the anesthetic effects of lidocaine, xylocaine, articane, prilocaine, etc.?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
You can't take the sky from me...
ask any recovering alcohol addict, nicotine addict, heroin addict, etc.:
forever, for the rest of your life, meeting a certain person from your past, seeing a certain street corner, it all suddenly comes rushing back to you, the urge will knock you off your feet
when you are depressed at the loss of a job, a girlfriend, the addiction is there waiting for you in your moment of weakness to relapse
you have to carry a burden, the rest of your life. the chance of relapse is huge, forever. it requires ocnstant effort, your entire life, not to go back. your freedom has been permanently diminished, your entire life
by becoming an addict to a chemical, you have made a permanent space in your brain the rest of your life for the full blown addiction to come back
such that the most intelligent social and personal policy is to never flirt with the chemical in the first place
anything else i can help you with today, oh champion of slavery?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The antibodies produced against such an antigen in an animal model can be screened for affinity against a whole range of other molecules such as naturally occurring molecules of similar structure. Fortunately, cocaine does not have a similar structure to many other compounds naturally occurring in nature, despite its biological activity. I'm sure that they have already tested the specificity of the antibodies produced exhaustively. To be fair, I think it's probably an ideal drug for such a therapeutic approach.
yes, 100% true: society gets to choose which behaviors are permitted and which are not, based on a prudent risk assessment
the risk of addiction is too high for cocaine, heroin, and meth. therefore, in the name of freedom (of the nonaddicts), it is illegal to zombify yourself and become a slave of a chemical
anything else i can help you with today in the realm of common fucking sense?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The US military can experiment on the troops, using them as guinea pigs for new drugs the FDA never approved.
In 1971 or 1972 when I was stationed at Dover Hell Hole Base I went to the dentist for a filling, and he said they had this new stuff, "not even FDA approved yet" that was super fast acting.
So he took the needle out of my mouth and asked if it was numb. "nope". He gave me another minute, nope. Another minute and another shot. And another and another. After fifteen or twenty minutes it got a little numb, and the pain was excruciating. He gave me another shot halfway through the procedure. It was the most extremely painful dental work I ever had, including the Air Force root canal where they stuck a needle down the canal to see how deep the root was (before the electronic doohickeys they use now).
Three hours after leaving the dentist the whole left side of my face was paralyzed, and stayed that way for over a day.
Any Idea what they shot me up with?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Now we can all be strapped to chairs and "vaccinated" both physically and mentally until all of our bad habits, bad thoughts and general evilness is gone. Just do not play Beethoven while undergoing treatment (because that would be immoral). It really is okay to take away free will.
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
or perhaps, you have a false sense of security
hmm...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_addiction
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I wonder if anyone has considered that this might be useful if given to crack babies, who some argue have a biological pre-disposition to cocaine use/addiction, if it could stop them from being able to "go down that path" that would likley result in addiction later in life.
Regarding the ethics, I have a hard time with vaccination mandates from the government, but when the HPV vaccine (STD) was offered for girls, I understood why some girls would resent being vaccinated if they had religious beliefs that would lead them to not be exposed to the virus, and being vaccinated called their self-defined integirty into question. I also see how the straight A+ honor student might be a little irked that his parents decided while a child that he couldn't be trusted to "say no to drugs." However, in the end, I think in any case, if the side-effets are slim to none (idealisticly), I'd say a reasonable person would say there is nothing wrong with being "too careful." I'm sure some would say that in this case, it could deprive the child from experiencing the drug, and that the laws are wrong, not the user, I don't think anyone could agree that cocaine (legal or not) is a *healthy* activity even in moderation, and the medical community's mission is better health (except for Big Pharma, they're in it for the money.)
While this is definately a novel approach and an interesting one, I would think however, it would be more fruitful to invest in research to prevent the brain chemistry changes that cause addicion (for biological chemical dependancy, and not run of the mill behavioral addictive patterns), so that it would be ideally, a silver bullet, allowing users to use, without becoming so dependant that they make poor life choices like using behind the wheel, using dirty needles to get the fix, stealing to support the habit. I think the reason the "war on drugs" is supported by so many people, even those who have used in the past, is the fear of being victimized due to someone else's addiction.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
Both would prefer no other pleasures exist to compete with their interests, as suggested by George Orwell.
Why bother.
so you are saying that we can make cocaine and heroin legal, just as soon as human beings stop caring when people they walk by on their way to work are dying in the street
drug legalization: legal in a world without any human conscience
that seems to be your position
and i agree, it would be legal in such a world
but back here in this weird place called reality, you need to update your opinion to include the small nagging issue of people actually caring when someone is dying in the street
when you've done that, get back to me
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
for example, going 60 mph is legal, going 120 mph is not
risking addiction with alcohol or pot should be legal, risking addiction with coke or heroin is not
it's about the fact that alcohol/ pot=mildly addictive, heorin. coke=wildly addictive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_addiction
now that you have this wonderful concept called "scale" before you, maybe you can rework what you said above to make some sense
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I mean, one with a liquid in it, not air to shoot in their veins
You can't take the sky from me...
in procrasti's world, "a hard choice" is what we call slavery
for example, a slave can choose not to work the fields today if he wants, but then he gets 20 lashings. he can choose to marry another slave that his master did not choose for him to mate with, but that's 50 lashings
so he's not really a slave see, he can still choose to do anything he wants just like a nonslave, it's just harder for him. a slave is as free as you and me, it's just that his choices are a "hard choice" because they involve lashings
i await your next piece of divine wisdom on why water is dry and the sun is dark
i have discovered the amazing truth from you that slavery is just a world like freedom, it's just full of hard choices
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'd hate to see how his music would have turned out had he been vaccinated.
In an effort to conform with internet communication standards, please note that the above comment is 100% biased opinion
or did you actually just make the straight faced argument that slavery is superior to freedom?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
While this technology would be great for helping addicts overcome their addictions, I hestitate to think that it would be a good idea for anyone to require such a vaccine as some comments have speculated. Who knows? Maybe this drug could open the way to other drugs that allowed to block a more wide range of physical and emotional responses to external stimuli other than narcotics.
:)
One drug blocks this, another blocks that, next thing you know we're all doped up waiting on Christian Bale to save us. But then again, I didn't RTFA. Maybe I'm just stretching it a bit
In an effort to conform with internet communication standards, please note that the above comment is 100% biased opinion
you don't understand addiction. people don't make rational decisions to take drugs. they take them in moments of weakness: the loss of a job, the loss of spouse. and then the chemical takes over, and controls your life
how can i say this? how if i told you about a class of people who were the most educated class of people on the issue of painkillers and drugs. and that this same MOST highly educated class of people, also had the highest rates of addiction for doctors. i'm talking about anesthesiologists
so how does that work? the people most educated are also the most addicted? the people who know the MOST about the pitfalls?
because education is not the deciding factor. simple exposure is. all highly addictive drugs need to addict is exposure. all they need is a moment of weakness. something we all have. it's an incredibly straightforward relationship: more exposure= more addicts
therefore, the most effective way to fight addiction is to make highly addictive drugs illegal. yes, you immediately introduce all of the negative influences of prohibition. and yet the negatives of higher exposure to coke, heroin, and meth are still greater than all the organized crime statistics you want to cite. with LESS addictive substances, prohibition's lessons apply: alcohol, marijuana
but not those lessons do not prevail when we are dealing with the vampires. not the drugs where simple exposure leads to addiction, regardless of willpower, experience, and education
you speak of economists. economists talk about rational decision makers in a rational marketplace. these arguments don't apply to addiction, because addiction is not a rational choice
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Especially given the companies under discussion.
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
Their will is subject to the will of their owner.
A drug has no will, so the use of a drug by an addict is still the addict's own will.
A slave is not free to make any choice, there is no freedom after the lashings. A drug addict can have their freedom, it is hard, the drug may even 'lash' them for breaking free but they do not have to remain addicted for ever. Therefore, they are not a SLAVE.
Reference? I'm calling ur bullshit, kthx.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
On those rare occasions when I got a bad cough, bad enough that I actually sought treatment, I bought off the shelf commercial cough medicine - the ones using dextromethorphan. I'll swear that they did nothing, and just now see that there is actual research suggesting the same.
Finally during one particularly bad illness a pharmacist gave me cough medicine containing codiene. Wow - the first night's sleep in two weeks.
Too often these days the medicines that are given are chosen less for their efficacy than for their lack of any of those "bad" drugs. It's frustrating that anti-drug paranoia is influencing medical decisions.
As regards the cocaine vaccine - how long before some dimwitted politician decides to start vaccinating elementary school students?
Three Squirrels
Cause if so, sign me up! I am addicted to dailys, herb farming, and making tons of gold! I need help. I can't stop!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
The trick with smoking is it's a habit more than an addiction. The chemical addiction is really not so hard to overcome by itself, you'll feel a bit 'out of it' for a few days afterward (tired, irritated, classic stimulant withdrawal), but those things tend to subside relatively quickly. It's the habit portion that's so hard to overcome. You're used to going out for a smoke from time to time, and without that little smoke break you feel bored. You get hooked on the experience, not the chemical.
I guess this would be called psychological dependence. They may be able to 'vaccinate' against the physical dependence of nicotine, but that won't help one bit with the psychological aspect of the addiction.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
more exposure leads to more addicts
more addicts is worse than all the negative effects of the war on drugs
this observation does not hold for pot, lsd, alcohol, nicotine
this observation does apply to cocaine, heroin, meth
i will grant you that coca tea is ok. it is very weak. the natives of bolivia, etc., didn't have the technology to make cocaine stronger than that. so coca tea is like khat: essentially harmless. but purified cocaine is pure addiction, and therefore should be outlawed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Chantix worked for me. I quit after about a month because I couldn't stand the "stank farts" side effect. Like the OP, I have absolutely no mental desire or physical craving to go back.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
anyone else would have realized by now that redefining your terms to have the exact opposite meaning is a sign of defeat
but you keep right in bulldozing, congratualtions to hard headed stubbornness
procrasti you need to learn the value of honesty
here, this guy has the same opinion you do, but at least he is honest about what his position means, about what your position means:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=404888&threshold=3&commentsort=1&mode=nested&cid=21898958
slavery to drugs is not a kind of freedom where you have "hard choices"
fucking incredible stubbornness in the face of complete defeat
redefine slavery as freedom, and you keep right on chugging
in your own maladaptive display of colossal stubbornness in complete defeat, where you wind redefining slavery as freedom, you're kind of awesome
kind of like a massive carwreck with lots of decapitated bodies is awesome
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
and then slowly the virus changed. People became more aggressive, and less tolerant of light. But I can find the cure, I am.... -I AM LEGEND!
John Walsh once found me while looking for some other kid. He was not amused.
A person cannot be a slave to themselves. A person cannot be a slave to something with no WILL. A person can only be a slave to something with a will, ie another person.
Drugs have no will, addicts are slaves merely to their own impulses, which is actually the definition of freedom retard.
Freedom to pursue your OWN WILL. If anything, you want people to be slaves TO YOUR WILL.
now they've gone and "blown" all the fun out of coke. isn't anything sacred?
How long until part of the sentence for cocaine possession or use requires either a lengthy prison stay or mandatory injection with this? What happens if you are only suspected of cocaine use, but it can't be proven? What if this becomes a public health measure - to inject most children with this to head off drug addiction? It's one thing to vaccinate against disease, but chemically changing the human body as part of a "war on drugs" gives me the shivers. Especially because these powerful scientific tools are likely to be just as foolishly and unfairly misused as the conventional tools used to combat drug use (prison sentences and no-knock searches for example). Let's not forget that if past experience is any guide, what this will end up leading to is 30% of the poor and minority populations in this country injected with all this crap, independent of the long term consequences.
Maybe I'm reading the summary wrong, but it sounds to me like this won't actually help one bit with the cravings; it will just prevent the drug from having any response. In other words, the effect of the vaccine would be like quitting cold turkey...extremely painful for the firmly addicted (possibly even dangerous for a drug like cocaine). You could keep injecting/snorting/smoking it, but it won't do a darn thing for you.
The same would no doubt hold true for a similarly-functioning nicotine vaccine. It could be a very unpleasant way to quit smoking.
addiction is a state of perfect rational choice, no compulsion or coercion about it
zzz
it's tired man, you're tired. watching you calling the sky green and calling the desert the ocean with a straight face is fun at first, but then you get pretty boring...
yawn
hey, btw, isn't a shame you can't 0 rate my comments here?
i miss that validation
(snicker)
ps:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=addiction+slavery
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In this ever increasingly complex world we live in, it's really not at all surprising that "few parents have even bothered to look at what they are allowing to be pumped into their kids". It seems we've all entered into a pact with federal government where we give them a percentage of our earnings, and in return, we expect them to make these types of decisions for us using the best information possible.
Most people simply don't have the time to do the research necessary to determine if drugs X, Y and Z have any potential or suspected bad effects, and what specific levels of potential risks are associated with each of them, PLUS additional research to determine what negative side-effects they might incur for refusal to go along with the established program of "standards" (will the kid be barred from attending public school for the non-compliance, for example?).
Now, personally, I'd argue that if I wasn't forced to work so hard and so long just to get by (largely because govt. takes so much of my income away from me in the form of income tax, sales tax, etc.), I'd have the time and energy to look after more of this myself! But that would be the thinking of "fringe politics", along the likes of Ron Paul - who the mass media already wrote off as a "real" candidate for this next election.
ok, how about hillbilly heroin?
this is an epidemic where the drug is free, prescribed, purified, price standardized, and controlled
and yet still it gets out and addicts people and creates a black market
relaxing some of those controls would do what?
it would simply result in more addicts, not less
so how is this possible?
because simple exposure to a vampire like heroin leads to addiction
heroin + natural organic moments of weakness we all feel -> addiction, in every single human being. in me. in you. everyone. no matter the education, no matter naything else
no other observation overpowers that observation: more exposure = more addicts
it's an ironclad observation
therefore, the most effective harm reduction policy is exposure reduction
make it illegal, and you increase the harm from impure product, crime to get money to buy it, a growing mafia, all of that prohibition ugliness
and yet you still do the least overall harm to people, addicts, society, any overall measurement you want to make on harm
prohibition is evil, and it sucks
and yet wider access to heroin is still worse
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
makes me fucking sick...
these sick fucks would force this upon general people..
you know how many shots you get when you go to jail??
sick sick sick
Now wait a minute. First you argue that vaccines won't catch on because people won't just take them, then you turn around and argue that people will take any vaccine the government tells them. Which is it?
yes, tired old drivel
boring, old, done
zzz
so anyways, what exactly compels you to 0 rate all of my comments?
please don't stop, it fills me with glee to bother you so much
i'm just wondering at the psychology of the sycophant
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I second that. Put up or shut up.
I find being offended by me offensive.
No, this is not a knee-jerk reaction to the silliness of the war on drugs. This is asking "Why the hell are people reducing the effect of all cocaine derived **//medicines//**???" These pain relievers are an important part of many people's lives to mitigate and control pain.
"I'm sorry, Doctor. I've been immunized to that basic pain medication you want to give me."
People are crazy.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
The trials done at Columbia with 10 college students with no plans to quit the drug may not really give you much information about the behavior of addicts, as far as whether or not dedicated addicts will seek another drug or not.
This is, incidentally, my #1 annoyance about drug policy discussions - people who don't draw a distinction between casual, recreational users and those who are actually addicted to the drug in question.
And geez, this is slashdot, how long will it take for somebody to mention this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
For those who don't know, when the lead character was made bio-chemically incapable of getting high on either cocaine or amphetamines, he sought out an exotic synthetic with similar effects.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Varenicline, an {alpha}4beta2 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Partial Agonist, vs Sustained-Release Bupropion and Placebo for Smoking Cessation
A vaccine for blow. That doesn't sound very fun at all!
If the antibodies got into the brain and cross reacted with dopamine, I'd be more worried about Parkinsonian symptoms than blocking orgasm. But even though cocaine blocks the dopamine transporter, it is chemically pretty difficult from dopamine, so it should be possible come up with an antigen that only elicited antibodies against cocaine, and not against dopamine or other related natural neurotransmitters and hormones. These are such an obvious concern that the vaccine would never have gone forward if there were any evidence of this.
You are quite a ways behind the times. The notion that cocaine is a relatively safe stimulant fell by the wayside when people in their 20's started dropping dead from cocaine cardiotoxicity. Crack is just another name for cocaine (in the free-based form in which it is now most commonly sold--once in the bloodstream, it is the same drug). Meth may indeed be worse than cocaine but that is more an indictment of meth than a testimonial for cocaine.
Uhmmm, dont go to the desntist after having had one of those immunizations...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
why do you bother arguing with me?
am i beneath you? or redeemable in your eyes?
because the 0 rating suggests an antisocial finality to the pointlessness of talking to me directly
yet you continue to banter your stupidity at me like you want me to convince me of something
jxg rates me 0 all the time, and doesn't talk to me. makes sense: he has no respect for me whatsoever. that's fine. now i see a 0 rating of his as a sort of validation
but you're not jxg. you babble at me AND 0 rate me
well: rate me 0 all you want dude, call me a troll all you want. hate me, despise me, have no respect for me. no problem
but then you don't get to talk to me, if you wish to present yourself to me as a someone worthy of interaction
just wondering at your defense of your behavior of modbombing, why that's ok, when you continue to talk to me
either you hold me in absolute contempt, or you consider me redeemable
modbombing someone and engaging them in discussion is a form of what kind of behavior in your judgment?
how would you characterize that?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So what if some of the neurochemicals in your brain, like noradrenaline, are chemically similar enough to the target antigen (cocaine) to cause the antibodies to attack your own neurotransmitters?
This is one case in which similarity of name is misleading. cocaine does not really look all that much like procaine or other local anesthetics. Not surprising, since cocaine does something other local anesthetics don't do--it blocks the dopamine transporter. So it shouldn't be that hard to avoid local anesthetic cross reactivity. Pretty much the same thing goes for dopamine and other natural catecholamines, and these are obvious things to check.
"countries that have more liberal rules about drug usage than we do haven't seen these epidemics occur. Do they have drug addicts? Sure... on parlance with us, or even less"
hmmm
switzerland is pretty liberal on drug policy
and will ya look at that...
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_dru_off-crime-drug-offences
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Not true. There are no important cocaine-derived pain relievers.
I worked as an immunochemist from 1973 to 1985 on a very similar idea, trying to get a vaccine against a fungal toxin. Making the antigen was what my doctorate was about. Getting an immune response was easy. Getting it to be useful was difficult, and in the end, not funded.
The key problem is effectiveness. The immune response relies on immunoglobulins, proteins which have about 600 residues per binding site. The immune system evolved to take out large molecules, and the bacteria or whatever hanging off them. Most drugs are small. The rule of thumb is they all weigh 250 amu, call it 2 residues. (That is, equivalent in weight to 2 amino acids). So to mop up a gram of cocaine, you need 300 grams of antibodies in the body devoted solely to the cocaine problem. Forget it. Too big a problem.
Our fungus was more effective, so we were out to mop up only a few milligrams. We did get a biological response. We made the disease worse. That leads to the next problem. Antibodies do not do anything nasty themselves. They just bind and signal to a macrophage to come and eat the problem. So binding a drug does not get rid of it, but turns the drug from a short term compound, maybe readily metabolized, into a slowly released compound. That can make some diseases worse.
So even if the cocaine could get mopped up, all you would achieve is a slow release drug. This could be metabolically effective, as the body may adapt and up or down regulate the cocaine receptors. Don't ask me what would happen. I was an organic chemist, not a vet. So a cocaine high would initially occur, but subsequent weeks-long cocaine release could mess with the cocaine receptors.
Of more interest to us was the next step - modifying antibodies to act as enzymes. In the end, this was never funded. The up-coming DNA revolution swept up all funds, and rightly so.
There is no point in worrying much about not being able to take your daily cocaine hit. I do not expect the vaccine to work as reported. The side effects of the treatment could be interesting, especially if you are on death row, and are given favorable treatment in return for taking cocaine. Even if purely passive, such vaccines could have one judicial use; retaining cocaine or any other drug in the body for weeks would be of use in proving a relapse into drug use, and a parole violation. I cannot see any great cheering from the sidelines for that idea either.
The article referred to is just a report on a newspaper report. My pessimism may be unjustified. I do not have good access to the original. Anyone interested can request further comments or an email. It was all a long time ago.
30% experienced psychotic episodes?! Are you high? It can cause cause strange dreams in maybe ten percent of people, but nausea (the most common side effect) is the only one close to that percentage.
The only psychotic episodes with varenicline that I'm aware of have been in people who had them already.
The nice lady on the phone promised me.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
http://www.pharmalot.com/2007/11/chantix-and-suicidal-behavior-the-numbers-please/
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/early_comm/varenicline.htm
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Whenever the subject matter turns to cough syrup, somebody inevitably mentions a study that proves that they don't work. All I know is that when I have a sick kid hacking up a lung all night, I give them cough syrup and it goes away.
Really any sweet syrup will do the same thing. Try honey on a spoon next time.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Undoubtely, they will never rest until a way is found to prevent orgasms from occuring (or at least being felt or being pleasant) or, better yet, a way of totally eradicating the pleasure center of the brain...
Unlike booze, there is little or no need for a constitutional foundation for the current drug policy. The constitution allows the federal government to implement and enforce international treaties, including the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances and other, similar treaties. Now, those treaties do not exactly specify how each country should implement the conditions of the treaty, but it definitely authorizes the parties (including the US federal government) to outlaw the drugs covered by the treaty.
Idiot, I'm not modbombing you, I just 0 rate you and not ALWAYS either (never where I would have given another poster a 3 for the same comment). Modbombing would be going to your profile and zeroing everything. I just read everyone's comments and mod them appropriately. I read almost every comment there and rate probably near half of them.
I used to think you were redeemable, but you built a WALL, remember that? You said yourself that you are not redeemable, that nothing will ever change your mind on this topic.
How many times can you tell me to die and expect respect? The disrespect aspect was entirely initiated by you, I wonder how you can even expect my slightest respect after some of the things you have said.
You also repeat flawed arguments over and over. For example, I point out the flawed 120mph analogy a hundred times to you and you go on using it, so I assume you don't listen, don't care and are primarily interested in trolling. Its a perfect troll analogy in that it seems right on first examination, but is ultimately wrong.
Also, if you weren't so damn prolific in your postings you probably would never have come to my attention at all - you can't post half the comments in every story and consider your respondent's sycophants for noticing you, but then again, I consider that too yet another one of your clever little trolls.
The truth is, in general, I don't think you are worthy of interaction, but on some topics it is worth replying to your trolls just so that others don't fall for your subtly (deliberately) flawed logic.
poor sad little man
;-)
you really have no idea what you are dealing with do you
teeheehee
joy oh joys
(whistling
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
an idiot 14yo troll.
Pseudoephedrine is a pain in the ass to get now in most states, but here in Oregon, they've made it completely illegal without a prescription. Unfortunately, phenylephrine is no more effective than placebo when ingested orally. Apparently it's effective in nasal sprays, but when ingested it doesn't get absorbed into the bloodstream at all.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I'd rather spend the dollars raising awareness against cocaine/drug addiction. Nevertheless congratulations to the researchers. Its definitely a great breakthrough. listen_to_slashdot
They never have to worry about relapse with alcohol again. The desire to escape still exists.
People don't get addicted to alcohol. They just get addicted. The means of acting out, is a very minor detail. Taking away one of the means, does nothing about the person's self-destructive desires. This just treats a symptom.
That said, it's an interesting tool. I can see the value in converting an addict from a cocaine user to an alcohol or sex user. Sure, they're still out to hurt themselves, but at least they'll waste less money on it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
For Tivo users, the actual names is "Hooked: Illegal Drugs and how they got that way". It is an ongoing series.
I agree with the parent, however. Very very informative about the history of our drug war.
This idea is particularly bad. You could possibly be giving yourself a vaccine to painkillers. Not at all a good thing. The best thing to do about cocaine is not use it in the first place.
Okay, you my round friend, is wrong on all accounts.
If addicts were "slaves", if this statement is true, then ALL adicts are slaves. Now, slaves to what? To what drug? To any drugs? To some drugs? To cocaine? To chocolate? What the hell do you mean when you say addicts are "slaves".
Do you love your children? Can you not live without them? Would you call yourself a "slave" to them? Are you "addicted" to your children? No matter what you answer to any or all this questions, there are people that do not love their children, that can live without them, that would not be a "slave" to them, that would not be called addicted to their children but prefferably kick them out by the time they are seven. And then there are people that would prodly wear a SLAVE tatoo in their forhead to proudly show that they love their children and would do anything for them.
You see, the world is not simple. There is almost nothing in society you can slice with your two-bit, conservative-manicheich view (not sure how to write this in english, in spanish we say Maniqueo, which was a cristian hierecy that said there was a clear separation between jesus's divinity and his body, they further stated that jesus's body was unclean, as it was of this world.... catholics burned them all. We use the term in spanish to refer to people who want to judge everything in black and white and are not willing to look at any shade of grey)... after the long parenthesis, I continue: there is almost nothing in society one can really judge as "good" or "bad" from any absolutist moral standpoint.
You choose to say that society is right in limiting the rights of ALL citizens because SOME of them take drugs. That is what you SAY.
Im here to tell you that NOT all drug consumers end up being addicted (id go as far as to say that MOST drug users are NOT addicted, but i have no way to prove it, so I wont go into that). NOT all drug users are, thus, addicts, but they are ALL criminalized under the same manicheich view you have.
In this light, drug control laws stump on the rights of productive, working (from your own definition) people and should thus be ABOLISHED!
The law MAY (if we take YOUR statements as true), protect society from some drug takers but, in the process, it limits the human rights of those that wish to consume drugs in a responsible way, arguably, the rights of MOST drug takers.
Now, getting into that subject of how addicted are most drug-taking individuals, just look at the figures. The most taken drug is cannabis (pot), which is not physically addictive and it has less of an addictive trait than alcohol (this, and many other things youve got WRONG, can be verified in drugwarfacts.org). If its the most taken drug, and its not as addictive as alcohol, but still carries a healthy cost in the drug control policy implementation of the DEA and FBI, then its prohibition is INNEFICIENT to society and SHOULD BE ABOLISHED.
As for stating that "any" libertarian would support your conservative point of view, ask MILTON FRIEDMAN, you TWERP: go google for "Milton Friedman" "america's drug forum" and watch the video of the grandest liberal of modern america giving you the intelectual spanking of a lifetime.
Jeeze.... i come from a two-bit, third world, moslty catholic country but i still can see where some of you americans betray your most valuable principles. I profundly admire the young america, the old america, whitman's america, but oh, how i despize the new america, Bush's america, Reagan's america. One that decided that democracy is less important than stability, that freedom is less important than security.
SHAME.
NO SIG
Mandatory innoculations, coming to an installation of society near you!
You know, the funny thing is this won't stop a thing. You'll just see coke starting to get mixed with short lived immunosuppressants.
www.isoHunt.com
Coke vaccine "in the works" ...
...
There isn't always, and shouldn't always be, a "quick fix."
Dig that crazy hepcat jive. (Sugar.)
It's a placebo. Just give them a spoonful of Karo syrup and tell them it's cough syrup. It tastes better and is just as effective.
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
In the '30s, Pot was becoming widespread.
The use of the southern pine forest to make pulp for the 'Paper Barons', like William Randolph Hearst, was a turf war waged with millions of acres of pine trees.
When hemp paper, which was a cheap renewable resource, threatened to disrupt the party their monopoly allowed, they paid for laws to outlaw it.
How many acres do you need to grow a shitload of ropeweed? Long fiber hemp will grow anywhere, on anything.
You know someone had to pay for the propaganda that suddenly swelled out of nowhere in the 30's. Movies like 'Reefer Madness' aren't written by ex-tokers wanting to help someone recover; that's why we find it so funny now.
Most of the racist stuff was the propaganda they spread at the time, to cover the real issue; that by controlling pulp prices they could ruin any competitor financially, and control of the press was control of pretty much all of the media at the time...this also accounts for the ease with which they convinced Congress to go along.
I believe importing bulk hemp paper as a commodity, like news print paper, is still illegal unless it's changed recently; I know it was `30 years ago.
There are huge areas of my state that belong to the remnant of the company that ended up with all their land. Drive I-75 thru Chattanooga, TN; Smell that? That's them.
The entire pine acreage near me was completely wiped out a few years ago by pine beetles...all the pulp pine was susceptible to the beetle; now the only pines are the local variety, which are not susceptible.
In my opinion, the reason it is still illegal is that it stays in your system so long, and it's the easiest thing to find.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
DXM! DXM! DXM! T8k a bottle T8k a bottle T8k a bottle!!!! OMG! LULZ!
Or if you can't get oil of clove, you can chew on a dry clove. Tastes about as nice as (I imagine) chewing pine needles would, but it is very effective at killing the pain from a tooth with a bad hole in it. Of course, I don't recommend this as a long term solution, it is only going to get worse.
I found this out when a dentist put in a temporary dressing that tasted like clove...I asked and he said yes, that is what it is.
The article says, after taking the vaccine your body will now identify and rid itself of cocaine. Thus, you won't get any sort of high even if you continue to take the drug. Now, it seems to me, if I were a drug addict, and one drug is no longer working I'd just move on to another. One that will give me the high that I need. Basically, the vaccine doesn't suppress the craving, but rather just inhibits your body from satisfying it with cocaine. This is easily circumvented by shooting up, snorting or swallowing another drug.
That kind of defeat's cocaine's purpose.
This is why you don't let religious people make decisions for science.
Personally I think the USA should get it's management off cocaine.
Oh, right, you made it up. With millions of people on a drug, even a chance of 0.01% will show up hundreds of times.
I get mary jane from a middle-aged white woman with kids.
Benzocaine, novacaine, and lidocaine are not at all structurally related to cocaine. They have similar names for marketing reasons only. If they were structurally related, then people would be turning them into cocaine just like they turn ephedrine into methamphetamine.
My concern is with people snorting coke then having their throat close up and dying as a result. Also, the immune system takes a while to respond to an incoming threat (has to identify it, then start producing antibodies), so this would only stop people from binging at best.
Prepare for Unforeseen Consequences!
This has me kind of worried, as most local anesthetics (maybe all of them, I'm not a doctor) are based off of cocaine. Ever wonder why it nums your gums? It's because lidoCAINE, novoCAINE, marCAINE, benzoCAINE, etc... are all cocaine derivatives. This would be a terrible thing for a dental patient or anyone else needing a local for health related treatment. It would really stink to need general anesthesia to get a cavity drilled or a toenail removed etc...
Don't know what chantix is. ... one night more than 2 years ago I had a discussion with a tie worn by some type of product manager for one of the bigger tobacco firms (the one with the cowboy ..). Now this guy was 20 years younger than me and such an ass I told him I'll never give them a cent again ... I'm still keeping that promise. I never smoked again, I do avoid smoking areas because of all that smell and every single time I wanted to smoke again I just had to think of this asshole. Can't remember the name, though ...
I found another 'drug' after 28 years of heavy smoking
wideglide
The sum of intelligence on a planet is constant. Nowadays we have more people. When classic goes away, so do I. Copy
First Karo syrup may offer some relief. I believe that the ability to coat and to draw moisture may interfere with the irritation caused by mucous and microbe. Honey in particular has heat sensitive antimicrobial constituents that might help fight infection. I think I read about a study that compared honey that was heat treated against honey that was not. I believe it also has some antioxidant properties that could counteract some of the irritation from the excess superoxides and peroxides produced by immune response to infection. It makes sense that the bees might cough up a little something extra into their honey to keep the bugs and oxygen from spoiling it. It might not be very effective but honey has a decent safety record, unless you are an infant or have a compromised immune system. Botulism spores have been found in or on honey, but most people have developed an to them.adequate immune defense
The droud was the connector between any wall socket and Louis Wu's brain. Louis had destroyed that . . . had given it to Chmeee and watched the Kzin batter it to bits.
So, a replacement. Bait for Louis Wu, the current addict, the wirehead. Louis's hand crept into the hair at the back of his head, under the queue. Plug in the droud, let it trickle electric current down into the pleasure center . . . where was the socket?
Louis laughed wildly. It wasn't there! The autodoc's nano machines had rebuilt his skull without a socket for the droud!
lol the captcha is "blissful"
Yeah, I'm sure the governments of the world do trot out these stupid arguments occasionally, but it's complete bullshit. It costs a lot of money to keep people imprisoned. Courts cost a lot of money. DEA agents cost a LOT of money. Not being able to collect tax money on drug sales costs us a LOT of money. And, as far as "encouraging crime because of the cost"--well FUCK, if it wasn't illegal people could easily afford the shit on minimum wage. It's Economics 101, man... supply and demand. The harder the DEA cracks down, the higher the street price goes. Also, at least in the case of some drugs (Meth), a lot of the taxpayer-funded healthcare costs can be reduced if their shit wasn't contaminated with very dangerous impurities and cutting agents.
switzerland is pretty liberal on drug policy
What gives you that impression?
I agree with what I think you're suggesting: that there's no legitimate use for cocaine, and so there's no reason not to disable it.
However, I think you're missing a big downside. This amounts to curing a drug addiction with a drug. The problem with drugs isn't that people get high -- it's that people see them as an alternative to finding healthy, active, fulfilling ways to be happy, and then get adddicted to a passive, unhealthy lifestyle. To cure that, people need to find internal strength. Otherwise, gambling or alcohol or some other addiction will just get them instead.
Because I drank the cool aid in jail.
Is it just me or did Baylor Medical College just give every coke cartel around a massive simultaneous boner?
Cocaine acts exceedingly fast if I'm not mistaken. I can understand how a "vaccine" may induce immunological opposition to cocaine, but why on Earth bother?
1) Antibody reactions take the course of days. IgM takes days to multiply to any reasonable effect. IgG takes hours. Cocaine acts in milliseconds. It will not stop someone from guy high for a short time 2) A junkie who just took a snort and found that his high doesn't last as long may put it down to increased tolerance, and remembering that the craving persists, they'll just take more 3) Dealers end up selling more cocaine. Suddenly, for the same price, the volume of cocaine they sell may quadruple 4) More crime occurs as more low socioeconomic-status junkies resort to crime just to get more cocaine, to get the same high as before. Some may die, some may rot in jail, very few may actually give up. This drug is the ???? in the following sequence of events:
1. Deal a drug and hope for society to miraculously increase demand 2. ???? 3. Profit!
It seems to me that most people wouldn't use this vaccine, unless it's going to be required somehow. If you don't use cocaine in the first place, there is no need to take this vaccine. If you do use cocaine, why would you want to take the vaccine and 'ruin' the effects?
Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
"Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity,no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed." (Orwell, 1984, pg. 267).
Scary shit.
It's called having an IQ over 100 and enough will power to ignore pressure from your retarded peers.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
if you make cocaine a hapten, you can only generate an antibody titer against it for a short time. This will only work if you constantly use cocaine. If you take a break from the blow for a while and your antibody titer drops, it will take 3 to 4 days to build back up to high titer levels. I'm sure the half-life of cocaine is significantly shorter than that. Also, cocaine goes straight to the brain, especially if inhaled. This will make it difficult to track. Sorry addicts, you're just going to have to learn to deal. Well actually, they probably do that already. Okay, let the comments begin.
Spoken like a man who has never tried either.
Seriously, go try cocaine. Then try crack. Then try telling me they're the exact same thing with a straight face... I dare you.
The two are WORLDS apart, both in effect, and in the type of people who tend to use them. Cocaine is a middle/upperclass party drug. Crack is more of a poor-man's street drug.
You can "enjoy" cocaine while doing things, like clubbing and drinking and carrying on, as the effects are fairly mild compared to crack (or other intense drugs like MDMA or LSD). With Crack, if you're doing crack, that's ALL you're doing. You don't want to see people or do anything in public. You barricade yourself in your house/car/whatever and do the crack. Then, 5 seconds after you've done it all, you consider all your options in the way of getting MORE!
The two are worlds apart.
And while I'm at it, I absolutely refuse to accept the cocaine is a hugely addictive drug. Stop reading your D.A.R.E. program pamphlets for 5 seconds and go do some research people! Jesus.
Is it addictive? Yeah, mildly. I'd say slightly less addictive than alcohol.
I wouldn't say that it's a placebo. We first gave it to them when they were too young to even know what we were giving it to them for. For instance, my son would be asleep and coughing. We give him cough syrup at 11:30 at night. He doesn't even really wake up. He stops coughing. Why mess with what works?
And the same thing would have happened with any thick, syrup.
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
Reread my post - where exactly did I say that powder and crack cocaine are the same? I said that neither was more *dangerous* than the other. Apparently, crack is NOT "instantly addicting" or so much more damaging, at least on large scale, and those were the reasons that the Feds gave when they increased the sentencing minimums on crack well above powder. The hidden reasoning was the paternalistic urge to "protect" theose poor black folks who just don't know any better. So when you say "The two are WORLDS apart, both in effect, and in the type of people who tend to use them. Cocaine is a middle/upperclass party drug. Crack is more of a poor-man's street drug.", you are agreeing with a racist policy hidden in paternalism.
And I said nothing about the addictive nature of either drug - I only pointed out that research has shown that they are of equivalent danger. Cocaine users don't develop physical dependency like heroin or alcohol users - that's been long established. So, everyone who does coke doesn't get addicted. Big deal - everyone who drinks doesn't become an alcoholic. But that doesn't mean that alcoholics and cocaine addicts don't exist, or that their lives aren't substantially impacted by their addiction.
So you do coke, and you have fun, and you aren't addicted. BFD. So why do you have such a big chip on your shoulder?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
It's called having an IQ over 100 and enough will power to ignore pressure from your retarded peers.
Yes, but does it work for the majority of the population with an IQ 100 and not enough will power to even accept the fact that your parents don't have the right to physically/emotionally abuse you?
For people in those cases, drug addiction is the least of their problems.
Pretty much everyone who supports the vaccine subscribes to the idea that:
1. Cocaine use is a disease.
and
2.Wouldn't it be just ducky if we could find a nice chemical intervention that would leave the idea of personal responsibility completely out of this?
Disease folks usually are interested in certainties: on or off. What they're really interested in is not stopping addicts, but stopping everyone. If I ever wanted to go the NA route, I would have a great story to tell about how many thousands of dollars cocaine cost me, how I was kept in coercive relationships because of it, how I was stolen from, abused, and given tons of grief by dealers, etc. Fact is, I just walked out. No doctor, no group, no mentor.
I have strong religious convictions against 12-step and other "recovery" (really, "maintainence", since they explicitly don't "cure" and don't hold out the hope of actually, physically, recovering from anything) groups. Oh, I believe in God all right: I'm even a churchgoer. And yes, I believe in carrying out God's will. What happened to me was a product of a bad environment, a situation perceived as being hopeless, and an overwhelming need to feel happy, by any means necessary. On a spiritual level, I believe it's probably part of my mission on Earth to have been given this as a challenge, and yes, I believe I've found a solution. Whether it works for anyone else is immaterial -- I'd be at a loss to try to tell anyone else what to do, in any case.
My model for this is not that I had, or have, a disease, but I had a love affair with a bad guy. You know, the kind of guy that you like, but know is wrong: he's charismatic, handsome, generous, and funny, but throws unpredictable temper tantrums, puts you down in public for fun, is jealous, and well, acts peculiarly. Still, you figure, you like this guy, and he's great! So you make a few compromises: your time, your energy, you change some things. Then, things happen. His temper, which was directed heretofore at others, gets focussed on YOU. He quits taking you out, since you "embarrass him" with your "rudeness" and "flirting". All of a sudden, you're not his Little Princess, but his Disturbed Spoiled Brat who "needs him". He might even get you to believe it yourself. Now you're stuck. You don't have friends to help get you perspective, because they want to "stay out of this". You don't know when you've seen them last, anyway. The things you liked that kept you going (crafts, hobbies) you dropped because you're broke, and you don't feel up to them. You want to leave, but can't figure out how. Besides, the last time you fought, he was so nice! And then...
You walk out. Maybe not just once, but several times. It's terrible, but you get in the habit of walking. He cools. You cool. You're apart from each other for a while. Each time, you develop a little more into someone who doesn't have him in your life. Maybe you see each other again a few times. You think it will be like before, now you've cooled. But he's the same, and you aren't. Finis!
Was I somehow "not addicted", that I could do this? No one who saw me back then would think so. Would I take cocaine again? Sure, if it were free, and I'd be safe, and I felt totally masochistic! Wouldn't that mean I'd "relapsed" and would be on my way back to active addiction? No, I'd still hate it, and probably wouldn't do it again for a long while. Wouldn't you really like to have a vaccine, to remove even that temptation? No. Would you vaccinate against love?
teleny, friend of cats.
Jesus got it down to one line: "Love your neighbor as yourself".
Not that it's useful for creating laws, but then again He wasn't advocating that sort of thing.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
I just keep replaying the opening scene of the movie...
To me, it's funny[read: scary] how you DON'T distinguish between the two. Apparently, crack is NOT "instantly addicting" or so much more damaging, at least on large scale, and those were the reasons that the Feds gave when they increased the sentencing minimums on crack well above powder. Wait, so you're saying the feds thought there was no (or little) difference in damage or addiction, that both were equal, and that was the reason why they made minimums on crack higher? Do you even read what you write? The hidden reasoning was the paternalistic urge to "protect" theose poor black folks who just don't know any better. That's just naive. The government doesn't do anything to protect people, the politicians couldn't give two shits and a giggle about you or I. They do it to keep crazed crackheads in jail and to keep crack in the poor parts of inner-cities and out of the hands of middle-class kids. It's not so much about race as it is economics and class-systems. Keep the poor out of our nice suburban streets and all that... Cocaine is a middle/upperclass party drug. Crack is more of a poor-man's street drug.", you are agreeing with a racist policy hidden in paternalism. No dude. For the 15th time. It's economics and class systems, not race. Race is how it started and obviously it's still a factor, but I don't care if the strung out crackhead trying to break into my car is mexican asian or white, and neither do the politicians. Nothing in the above quote that I said has ANYTHING to do with race, although I have to admit I find it telling that you seem to think poor is synonymous with race. Do you hear the word "poor" and think "black" or "puertorican"? And I said nothing about the addictive nature of either drug - I only pointed out that research has shown that they are of equivalent danger. What research? Where?
I tell you what, it's wrong. Crack is way more damaging and dangerous than coke, and I was pointing that out to you. You can give me as many links as you want to "paper X" and "research analysis Y" but until you go to a ghetto and actually experience it for yourself, than how could you possibly know? So why do you have such a big chip on your shoulder? Because of people like you who get modded "insightful" for spouting total garbage. I find it beyond pretentious and annoying when people open their mouths and start spouting drivel as if it's gospel when they obviously have no idea what they're talking about.
HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
From TrollGoons
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Jombeewoof is a bastard who thinks the world owes him a living. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=267807&cid=202 [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org] 07637 [slashdot.org] Jombeewoof tried to destroy an Internet Service Provider in Massachusetts by expecting large bandwidth without paying anything. Educated alone doesn't pay the bills. Jombeewoof is not worth your mod points and is a MySpace loser. Jombeewoof, give up, get off the Internet. The TrollGoons won't leave you alone. Captcha is redneck. Jombeewoof is a redneck!
YOU ARE NOT WANTED ON SLASHDOT!
The very nice head chef at my favorite eatery had a nice trade in high quality purple going on behind the building, and he regularly added some MJ to the hickory blocks they used to smoke the ribs. Everyone I knew agreed the food quality went down after he quit, though the owners say none of the official preparation procedures had changed. If only they knew.
If so it seem like it would make tobacco the equivalent of poison ivy.
It's not an "either, or" situation.
I'm talking about people exhibiting a strong resistance to the concept of giving kids/teens new vaccines that claim to protect against things that aren't well-known childhood diseases that killed MANY people in the past.
I'm ALSO talking about a govt. that is rapidly headed down the road of FORCING the public to take such vaccines, regardless of our opinions (however well or poorly informed they may be) on them.
As it stands today, no - I don't think a "cocaine vaccine" would ever catch on as a good idea to immunize everyone against. It's just not that difficult to make people realize some big potential downsides of such a thing.
I also think that with another 4 years of a presidential administration similar to the one we've had, we could easily enter an era where such things were enforced by federal law against our better sensibilities - and that's something we should all take some time to consider.
Why is this story appearing now?
This vaccine, TA-CD, has been in the works since at least 1999. It's owned by Celtic Pharma-- after changing hands three previous times.
There are two other vaccines by other groups (one uses a different bug, and the other is a lattice of cocaine molecules big enough to generate an immune response.) Observe that neither of these two others was mentioned in the article.
There isn't anything new about this story, i.e. nothing to merit a sudden flurry of news articles, EXCEPT that the group just submitted a huge grant to the FDA in December and "is awaiting a response."
In other words, this isn't a news story, it's a press release.
Not that there's anything wrong with this.
AO
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/
It must be just me, but I've found that the replacement drug for Pseudophredrine (Chlorpheniramine maleate) actually works far better than Pseud. did to begin with.
I'm guessing it's individual physiology, because when I had congestion before I didn't even bother with the OTC stuff. I was going to suffer anyway, so I might as well suffer without paying for it.
I'm a she-slashdotter... but I make up for it by living with my folks.
Hiya all. First of all excuse me for my english, i write you from Spain. I'm an I.T. programmer, and an addict to cocaine in treatment with topiramate and phsicological therapy and i'm sure if i get that vacune some day i wont get on the street to search for other drugs. When someone is a beginner in drugs maybe yes, but if the vacune is applied to somebody who is seeing how much can harm you the cocaine, for sure it would work. Sirs, i'll be fine in a few months, and i wont never try to get some drugs, sure, but i'll have for the rest of my life the lack of that little monster in my head instigating me from time to time, telling me that there's an open door to find cocaine and telling me to use it. If the vacune investigations go fine and in 4 years or less people like me can get it, that will be the best. I'm not sure if this is an important opinion to this forum, but sure that a different point of view. Have it your way.