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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.
Would you vaccinate your child ?
Shakespeare poems - infinite monkeys with infinite time.Computer tech support - a few trained ones working from 9 to 5.
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?
The orgasm releases neurotransmitters that are similar to cocaine. Perhaps those vaccinated against cocaine would never have orgasms, or reduced orgasms. In fact, dopamine is critical for a lot of enjoyment. Maybe this will spawn a 'deadheading' procedure. Piss off the wrong person or government and you will never enjoy anything ever again. You wouldn't even want revenge, there would be no joy in it.
On the other hand, a sperm vaccine would be a nice alternative to having your tubes tied. Of course, there's the nightmare scenario where this treatment latches onto a live bit of cholera or whatever and spreads, neutering all humans.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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.
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.
Is it cocaine specific or does it effect response to a whole class of alkaloids? I would truely hate to be in the dentist chair with drill ready only to find, rather quickly, how well this vacine potentially could work.
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
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.
Currently in many states, in order for a child to go to school he is required to have certain vaccines; could this be added to it? while it sounds good (drugs won't appeal to them, because it does nothing) but to essentially take free choice away is quite scary. I don't think we should use science to manipulate law abiding citizens; who knows one day we may need to use the properties of cocain for something good. However I do think this could be very useful. People could voluntarily take it (if they want an extra reason not to be tempted), they could also take it for rehab, but perhaps the biggest use would be on criminals. Currently we have far to many drug addicts in prisons, costing us loads, so perhaps just like we castrate certain sex offenders, maybe we should get rid of the high for drug offenders. Even better, we somehow infect the distribution of crack,coke, etc and destroy the whole market. The biggest concern with the second approach of using it to punish criminals though is the fact (as someone else pointed out) that people can just turn to another drug...and you know what if you are use to high's and you don't get it now. Well you are going to find something else to replace it. It seems like this technology would probably be very diverse though; you could immunize them to many drugs, not just one.
From what I understand though, the immune system is locked out of the brain proper thanks to the blood brain barrier, so this drug shouldn't have any effect on naturally occurring opiates. My high school anatomy class never got into where the opiates are generated when someone has an orgasm (that would have made it far too interesting) but I'm guessing it's in the brain directly and not in the sex organs (where they would have to filter through the bloodstream before getting to the brain). Given how orgasms tend to be immediately gratifying, I'm guessing the production is local.
I read the internet for the articles.
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....
I fucking hope this thing works for users who inject it... because snorting coke isn't enough for long term users.
As long as it is voluntary and not compulsory. It's great there may be more tools for people who are seeking help for their problems. I don't believe in vaccines personally. I think from the abortion issue there was a slogan "Keep your laws off my body". That's all I worry about. I don't care what people ingest or get high off of and addicted too even if it is totally self destructive. IMO it's not my right to regulate them. But we've seen time and time again how some people think they have a right to force their belief or way of life onto other's for their own good. Also the connection between large corporations and the revolving door between them, their money, government, and the people who decide law and policy. (Like how people in the FDA play musical chairs with big pharma in major conflicts of interest). That in the interest of finding new markets and increasing profits that the pharmaceutical corps may be successful in creating a need for this, or enough fear to justify "need to force it on children/whoever just-in-case". As long as it remains optional then great for the people who want to be the lab rats and give it a try.
Why bother to do anything if you're always happy?
Exactly!!!
What's wrong with being happy and doing nothing? If everyone is like this, then no one suffers!
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.
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).
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?
For some reason I thought Pot was outlawed to target the blacks and eradicate hemp's thread to the nylon industry. Do you have any data on it being used to target Mexicans?
According to the Justice Dept., of the 1.5 million inmates in the U.S.:
* Drug Offenses 59.6%
* Robbery 9.8%
* Property Offenses 5.5%
* Extortion, Fraud, Bribery 6.8%
* Violent Offenses 2.7%
* Firearms, Explosives, Arson 8.6%
* White Collar 1.0%
* Immigration 2.8%
* Courts or Corrections 0.8%
* National Security 0.1%
* Continuing Criminal Enterprise 0.8%
* Miscellaneous 1.5%
So really, the drugs are not illegal, but not paying your license taxes is. However, the government doesn't license anyone so you really can't get your license. Interesting, no?
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