So, I'm sick today, so I was trying to catch up on a month's worth of science news (I keep the articles I want to read without reading them, and come back when I get the chance to). I found an interesting article about a cocaine vaccination.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "A Cocaine vaccination? I thought you could only vaccinate against viruses and stuff." Well, I was thinking something along the same lines when I read the article. But the method they used seems pretty good. They took cholera proteins (which is really what you use in vaccines anyway... it's various protein sequences that your body recognizes and forms an immunity to), and added cocaine molecules to those proteins. The molecules don't have any effect in the brain, so the vaccine itself doesn't make you get high. But any immune cells in your body that recognize the cocaine molecule will form a response to it, through antibodies and such.
The theory is that these antibodies will go and block cocaine molecules from entering the brain in the first place, so you won't get high when you snort or smoke cocaine. I don't know if it works, but the theory seems plausible, at least. After a time of not getting high from cocaine, heavy users will just stop using it, in theory.
That's where I get a little iffy about the theory part. As with any drug rehab, you can go through some severe withdrawal symptoms. I mean, if any of you drink coffee daily, and then try to go a couple days without it, you'll get some nice strong headaches from the caffeine withdrawal, unless you're supplementing the coffee with some other caffeine source. Cocaine works the same way. So by giving these people a vaccine that prevents the cocaine from reaching their brain, will they go through withdrawal immediately?
And what of things like the side effects? If you have antibodies building up against a drug, will you end up with antibody complexes when you try to smoke the drug? Those are never fun... often lead to things like arthritis and kidney failure and such.
Now, there is an additional debate about who would get the vaccine. Would the cocaine vaccine be given to pre-teens at the same time as the Hepatitis B series? Newborns? Only those addicted to cocaine? Those who use it 'recreationally'? Those who want to stop using it? What about babies that are addicted because they were born that way?
Should we even bother with vaccines against drugs? What would be after cocaine? Maybe other hard drugs like heroin, meth, X, etc, or maybe lesser drugs like caffeine (the most readily ingested drug)? What do you think?
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If something like this can work without major side effects it should be used as a rehab tool for those who wish to quit. As a vaccine for pre-teens it removes an essential part of choice from an individual. It's like a vaccine against thievery. Maybe good results, but horrible means that restrict the human right to choice in recreational activity, legal or otherwise.
I will try and track down the specific study, but the cocaine entry on erowid.org says that coke addiction is almost entirely a psychological addiction, so, in theory, physical withdrawal symptoms should be minimal. It is the psychological need for the drug that drives compulsive behavior, not an actual physical addiction cycle. That should also mean that physical symptoms of withdrawal would be minimal.
Anything that helps those who want to or need to escape a drug problem is good in my book, but if it's used to restrict the possible choices of individuals in the future before they have a problem. It would be chemical conditioning rather than psychological conditioning. To artificially, and against one's will, be turned away from any course of action, no matter how potentially dangerous seems wrong to me.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memento mori, mahalo.
"Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real-estate above principles."
I would oppose such a thing being required... though I'd have no problem with it being used as a first step in rehab.
They're going through withdrawl anyway, so might as well.
I am curious to know how this molecule interracts in the brain. Does it block receptors or does it make antibodies? If it blocks the receptors, how long will it remain in the receptor, and what else is it blocking by being there? If it makes antibodies, their most likely will be a physical reaction as the body's way of attacking something that it now knows is not suppose to be there is through fever, inflamation, etc. It is an interesting concept, but as you said, it is questionable. More research will obviously need to be done to better understand it's mechanisms and results.
My guess, based on what I've read, is that it doesn't block a receptor (like some medications do to treat depression and such), but it interacts with your immune system, so you'd have antibodies and T-cells and everything fighting against the cocaine molecules themselves, before they make it up to the brain to get you high.
And you don't necessarily have to have fever and inflammation to have an immune response. There's two categories of responses: Th1 and Th2... only one of them (can't remember which off the top of my head) causes fever and inflammation.
~C
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Rehabilitation purposes only in my opinion
Don't understand... so if the vaccine doesn't make me get high - then why it must be done?
Indeed, I think, only "vaccine" against drugs - is the life, full of happiness.
Other ways will not helps.
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And I thought viruses being the source of diversity on Earth was mind blowing. Science gets crazier every day.
It's an inside joke thing...
I want one for Cigarettes.
In all seriousness though, I have seen what crack and cocaine can do, I credit this fact solely for why I don't have a drug problem.
I think it would be put to good use for underage minors with a strong history of drug use.
Does you know if the vaccine would also help prevent the health risks from using cocaine?
If it makes the cocaine inert in the body then there is no reason to do the cocaine at all, so in that sense, yes. Nobody would snort, smoke or inject cocaine enough to do damage to themselves without the positive physical and mental effects.
“Existentialism means that no one else can take a bath for you” - Delmore Schwartz
"Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real-estate above principles." - George Jean Nathan
there is a profound beauty underlying this article. Although the process of being able to control cocaine addiction is variably insignicant in relation to what the article as a whole represents, in is nonetheless the first of process in the bioethical acceptance and promises of biological enhancement. We are now entering the dawn of a new a new age of human evolution, where we will be the developing principle of our very own intelligent design. Today we are psychologically altering the brains response to chemical substances, and tomorrow we will be inserting gene vectors into the cells of our dna to correct obesity and create a perfect physique. Soon we will be in control of our entire biology overcoming even the most impossible feats of the human struggle to survive