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Biotech

Vaccinated Against Vices? 583

Posted by michael from the do-gooder dept.
Smoke Me A Kipper writes "The Independent is reporting that the latest UK government sponsored quango, charged with looking at the problems of drug abuse, is to recommend a national anti-addiction 'vaccination' scheme. Apparantly, trials are already in progress. No details as to whether it would be mandatory. Personally I find such an idea utterly shocking - what happens when you find yourself injured in later life and morphine based painkillers no longer work? I wouldn't be surprised to find existing phamaceutical companies excited by this, having to replace cheap drugs with something new, which they can patent and control."
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Vaccinated Against Vices? More

Vaccinated Against Vices?

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  • Always thinking of the children... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chrispyman ( 710460 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:31PM (#9796343)
    While this would be a good thing to give to, say, former drug addicts and such, I don't see why children need to be involved. Besides, whose to say it won't have harmful side effects that aren't seen until later?
    • I suspect there is some shoddy reporting going on here with the reporter thinking 'hmmm, immunisation, this must be a childhood thing.

      You could perhaps posit reasons why it would be most effective during childhood - blocking developmental pathways etc., but there is no real suggestion in the few reported facts that this is the case... the rats tested weren't day-old rats as far as we know, and the affects were seen in a few days.

      Sadly then, there is not enough to go on in the report, to know for sure whet

      • RTFA (Score:5, Informative)

        by Daetrin ( 576516 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @07:07PM (#9797121)
        I suspect there is some shoddy reporting going on here with the reporter thinking 'hmmm, immunisation, this must be a childhood thing.

        From the article: "Professor David Nutt, a leading government drugs adviser who sits on the committee, told the IoS that anti-drug vaccines for children are likely to be among the panel's recommendations when it reports next March."

        Now did you not read that, or do you think they were just lying about that? Drawing unfounded conclusions is shoddy reporting, lying about what people have actually said is far beyond that into the range of libel.

        So at least as far as the claim that they're considering imunization of children, there doesn't seem to be any shoddy reporting going on. There might very well be some shoddy thinking going on by those who are developing the vaccines and those who are planning how to use them, but that is an entirely different (and more serious) issue.


    • Why don't they just skip all this intermediate stuff and just strap everybody into a big cocoon and feed them their government required daily nutrients through a tube?

      That way people will be perfectly safe from all sorts of vices and problems and they can just let the almighty bureaucrats take care of them.

      After all, who needs freedom or wants to control their own body?

      If someone is violent when on a particular drug and a court orders them to get this sort of medical treatment, I can see the point in tha

      • Re:Always thinking of the children... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:35PM (#9796667) Journal
        Amen. I am not sure why so many look to the government to "solve all that ails us". Not only does this strip away rights, it forces entire populations to participate in an experiment. Not only will persons who are at high risk of being addicted be affected, but the vast majority of participants would never have tried those drugs or become addicts, but still forced by government regulations, to share the same risk.

        I am not sure how the UK treats "required immunizations", but we have a little choice in the US, from home schooling to waivers for "religious reasons", although most would not have enough information to do so. This strikes me in the same vein as "Big Brother", since the patented 'viruses' that you would have to be injected with are not exactly open source, but are instead proprietary property of some Drug Company(tm) used under the direction of the Federal Government, all in the name of what is best for us.

        If that doesn't worry the shit out of you, then there is no hope for any of us.

        • Re:Always thinking of the children... (Score:5, Informative)

          by DarkMan ( 32280 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @07:40PM (#9797324) Journal
          I am not sure how the UK treats "required immunizations" ...


          Like all medical treatment it may be refused by the patient (or thier guardian, in the event of a minor, or other assignement of power or attorney), in general.

          There are some case where in order to do A, you need to take medication B (e.g. hepititus vaccinations for medical people, tetnus et al for military etc). That's a seperate class, however.

          There are two cases where refusal to take medication is overridden. The first is when the person making the request is 'not of sound mind'. A very dubious grey area, intented to allow the saving of sucide attempt and similar, can get very long and drawn out. I belive that this is the same as in the USA.

          The other case is when there is a clear danger to the health of the nation if you do not take the medication. This law was enacted with the specific intent of forcing people to complete antibiotic courses for Multiple Drug Resistant Tubercalosis (MDR TB). MDR TB can only be treated by a cocktail of drugs, and if the course isn't completed, then there is a change of strains of the bug resistant to them developing. TB is near endemic in some low income areas, and many patients were refusing to compelete the course once they felt better. After the they had to beef up the cocktail of antibiotics, the law was passed. It would also apply to forcing someone to complete treatment for MRSA or VRSA (Methycillian and Vantymicin resistant Stah Aurus respectivly), but given that your in an ICU for those treatments, it's never come up. MDR TB patients have near full activity during treatment, hence the problem. I understand that it takes a court order, but that the issuing of one would be routine. They are rare devices.

          The above law doesn't apply to an immunisation, as it doesn't risk immediate harm to the population if you don't have it. That applies even more so for an immunisation against a drug (e.g. Antabuse or similar).

          Being in a high risk group for immunsiations, due to autoimmune disorders, I researched this. Granted, this is all dated 5 ish years ago, but I'm not aware of any major changes. As is stands, there is no way to force a person to have any immunisation, nor to refuse any service (education, welfare or what have you) to someone who does not have that immunisation. The most extreme they can get is to refuse to employ you in certain, specified, jobs (medical or medical related, military and a few others). That's the law. In practice, certain immunisations are administered as routine, and the parents would have to be upfront and direct to refuse them, and tend to get a lot of FUD in response. There's a degree of social pressure applied, which varies depending on, well, which way the wind is blowing it appears.

          In short, no, as I understand it; the govenrment can't force an immunisation on the general public, and treatment only in specific cases. Forced drug immunisation as part of a criminal sentance might be possible, but not under current legislation, as I understand it.

          Apply (un?)usual IANAL but I researched this a while back disclaimer here.

      • Re:Always thinking of the children... (Score:5, Informative)

        by SacredNaCl ( 545593 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @01:29AM (#9798912) Journal
        I am a chronic pain patient

        I have a degenerative rheumatoid arthritis which has decided to rest in my spine, hips, and hands mostly but affects every joint in my body from time to time, chronic myofascial pain, neuropathy and a neurological condition which causes hypersensitivity in the nervous system to everything (not just pain, bright lights, sounds, temperature). I didn't ask for these things, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Having these and still trying to have a life and make it to work is difficult, the pain is off the charts, and depressingly I know it's going to get worse as I get older and end up with a lot more joint and bone damage. There is no cure for any of it, just treatments to slow down the progression and mask the symptoms a bit. This is not how I expected to feel at age 32.

        Having this, I'm very up on the research into pain management. If something out there has been tried, the odds are I've heard of it and I've read the trial. This isn't the first attempt to block euphoria from opioids or make drugs "unabusable". It is the first I've heard of a vaccine (well, more like a phage in this case) against it.

        There are not a whole lot of formulations out there that are suitable for long term use for those in severe chronic pain. There are extended release versions of Oxycodone (Oxycontin), a few extended release versions of Morphine (Kadian, MScontin, Avinza), a transdermal patch called Duragesic which delivers Fentanyl and can provide relief for up to 72 hours (but some people need to change them every 48) if you can get it to stick, Methadone (which despite it's long half life doesn't provide relief as long as it provides relief from withdrawal symptoms. It is, however, a very good pain killer once the dosage gets adjusted correctly.), and a few non-compounded instant release versions of Oxycodone & Morphine out there.

        There are tons of choices for moderate to severe acute pain, but most of those are combined with Tylenol or Aspirin, Caffeine, & Ibuprofen which greatly limits their dosage ceiling because they cause liver & kidney failure in high doses over prolonged periods of time. (You know them as, Tylenol-2-3-4, Vicodin, Norco, Vicoprofen, Tylox, Percocet...etc) Other great choices for acute pain include Demerol, which tends to cause a buildup of metabolites that can cause seizures with chronic use -- but it's a great drug for acute pain.

        It's much safer to be on the "long" drugs than the "short" drugs if you are going to need them for years on end. Misguided pressure from the federal government has made doctors leery of scrutiny if they write the long drugs. It's also had the effect of making doctors less likely to manage pain period. More than 60 million Americans suffer with some kind of chronic pain, and the odds are just about all of us will at some point in our life as we age.

        Various different drugs have been tried & mixed in with opioids. Purdue Pharma recently tried to make a version of Oxycontin with Naloxone in it. The problem is, by blocking these receptors which also produce euphoria, they also block pain control. Their conclusion was, it couldn't be done with the technology they had to work with and still deliver a product which had the full range of pain fighting abilities Oxycontin does. Another procuct on the market (Talwin) has formulations that use similar technology, but has a very low ceiling on it's benefit for that reason.

        Something like this vaccine being mandatory terrifies me. I'm having a hard enough time finding relief as it is, and I take drugs many times more powerful than morphine to be able to function on a daily basis. Those in pain have a natural protection mechanism against the euphoria and sedation these drugs produce. Extreme pain blocks those signals in the body as well as ones for respitory depression. If someone without extreme pain & opioid tolerence were to try to take the same doses of the medicines I use - they would end up in the hospital or
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • FYI (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:08PM (#9796541)
      The drug war started out as a form of government backed opression against Mexicans (who used Marijuana), Asians (who used opium), and Blacks (who used cocaine), but has flourished into a cash cow for all sorts of industries.

      There is a good article about it here [druglibrary.org]. Here are a few choice quotes.

      "And, sure enough, in the late 30s and early 40s, in five really flamboyant murder trials, the defendant's sole defense was that he -- or, in the most famous of them, she -- was not guilty by reason of insanity for having used marijuana prior to the commission of the crime."

      "Doctor, when you used the drug, what happened?" "After two puffs on a marijuana cigarette, I was turned into a bat."

      "You know what the women testified? In Newark they testified, and I quote, "After two puffs on a marijuana cigarette my incisor teeth grew six inches long and dripped with blood."

      2004, and the madness still hasn't ended. Now we might even start vaccinating people so that they don't try out these demonic drugs. Jeez, someone get me off this damn planet.

    • Actually, this isn't much good to anyone.

      The article mentions:

      Xenova, the British biotechnology firm, has carried out trials on an anti-cocaine vaccine which showed that 58 per cent of patients remained cocaine-free after three months.

      Placebo does about that well. Detox does about that well, too.

      I don't have exact numbers for cocaine, but heroin looks much the same. The recidivism is near 100% after 5 years. The important thing is not 3 months, it's a year down the line. Two years down the line. Aft

  • A Clockwork Orange (Score:5, Funny)

    by NixterAg ( 198468 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:32PM (#9796354)
    ...will those who are 'vaccinated' become physically ill every time someone plays Beethoven's No. 9?

    • Re:A Clockwork Orange (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes. Every form of bad human behavior becomes a "disease". The first thing the authorities do is coddle the "victim" of said disease until the "disease" turns into a plague. After that, they come up with treatments that will permanently change
      his behavior.

      This is the mindset of the modern left, those legions of enlightened "social democrats" that rule Europe and struggle to hang onto power in North America. Their welfare state took away personal responsibility and was eventually found wanting. In fact

      • Re:A Clockwork Orange (Score:5, Informative)

        by kenaaker ( 774785 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:21PM (#9796598)
        Strange, I have no traces of ANY campaign to remove the right to privacy, speech, religion, anonymity, association by anyone except the folks on the ultra right. Privacy? Ask John Ashcroft why he needs individual medical records to argue a federal case. Speech? ask the people banned to the "First Amendment Areas" that are out of sight and the people who were arrested for wearing the wrong T-Shirts at a Bush rally. Anonymity? ask the guy from Nevada who just lost at the case at the Supreme court about whether he was required to present ID to a police officer. Association? ask the Fresno Peace movement or the Association of Friends (Quakers) who were infiltrated by anti-terrorist agents. There are a lot of people who seem to be mentally in a Bizarro world, and physically in the real world.
  • Ridiculous. Medicating for no serious reason *at all*? I can't wait to see people have allergic reactions (some no doubt will) and sue the government for forcing them to take this absurd vaccine.

    • Re:Totally. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Gorath99 ( 746654 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:24PM (#9796613)
      Ridiculous. Medicating for no serious reason *at all*? I can't wait to see people have allergic reactions (some no doubt will) and sue the government for forcing them to take this absurd vaccine.
      I don't know if anyone is going to get forced into taking this vaccine, but I can't help but be reminded of a certain British genius [wikipedia.org] whose life was destroyed by unnecessary "medication" that was forced on him [wikipedia.org] by his government.

  • As long as it isn't mandatory (Score:3, Insightful)

    by minorthreatbmxxx ( 738716 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:34PM (#9796366)
    If people want to "vaccinate" themselves from drugs that they deem harmful, that's fine by me. However, even though I choose to abstain from drug use, I'd definitely not want to vaccinate myself. By vaccinating yourself, you're basically saything that your will is too weak to be able to avoid these 'vices'. And that might be fine for some people. As long as parents don't start vaccinating their children before they kids can think for themselves, and schools public schools don't require them alongside the other vaccines.
    • It's certainly a nice little earner for the companies who'll be paid to produce the drugs. Probably makes more sense to try to make society a better place so people don't feel the need to take heroin and crack, though. Anything which makes it more likely that people will use alcohol instead of other drugs can only have a detrimental effect on society.

  • Not too bad if European (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lord Kano ( 13027 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:34PM (#9796367) Homepage Journal
    The Europeans have a much more enlightned view of drugs. For example, in europe you can get a pain killer called "Diamorphine", in the us that same painkiller is illegal because it is chemically the same as heroin. Eurpoean diamorphine is manufactured under controlled conditions and is as safe as any other pain killer. American heroin is made in dirty warehouses and contains so many impurities that you are more likely to die from the introduction of arthropod parts into your blood stream than you are to die from overdosing on diamorphine.

    I typically sing the tune priaising the greatness of my country, but when it comes to drug policy, my country has it ass backwards.

    LK
    • Well, yes. After all, diamorphine was developed to not be chemically addictive, like morphine is (of course, it's sadly still psychologically addictive). "Heroin" is to "diamorphine" what "gak" is to "cocaine" and "ganja" is to "marijuana".
      Also, the "utterly shocking" comment by the submitter is rather sad - it makes the brain unresponsive to the canabanoids and a few other such neurotransmitter chemicals; the morphine is still meant to work as a pain-killer.

      • Incorrect.... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by mindstrm ( 20013 )
        Heroin is very much chemically addictive.. where did you hear that it wasn't?

        Physically, heroin addiction IS morphine addiction. Heroin is turned into morphine in the brain. As far as your neuroreceptors are concerned, it IS morphine.

        Heroin is just a more effective way to get the morphine to the brain.

        As with most drugs of abuse, the psychological addiction is the one that really gets you... but don't kid yourself. Heroin is VERY physically addictive.. just like morphine.

    • Guess what? Morphine in general is the same thing as heroin. You can be on morphine all your life with little physical damage but if you go off it the withdrawal can kill you as surely as heroin - the only benefit is that the drug itself is not dirty from production or being cut with something as it is medical grade and thus anything which is not the drug is guaranteed to be harmless - in the case of injectable medication, it's usually sterile saline.

      There is also medical grade cocaine, which is similarly

    • Think Cigarettes company brand Crack... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Brian_Ellenberger ( 308720 ) * on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:23PM (#9796605)
      Two comments:

      1. For 30+ years we have been wrestling with the consequences of simple Cigarettes! We have corporations hiding health info, playing with nicotine amounts, and a ton of cancer patients and billion dollar lawsuits. All for a drug which by all accounts is potentially deadly after long-term use but is comparatively benign. Unlike, say alcohol, coke, or heroin, it does not cause intoxication and cigarette addiction is very unlikely to cause you to lose your job and family.

      Now considering everything you know about the tobacco companies and all that has come out in the past 30+ years, you really want a "more enlightened" policy leading to [insert Cigarettes company] brand heroin, cocaine, or crack? Only for 18+, of course....

      2. From the article's poster:
      I wouldn't be surprised to find existing phamaceutical companies excited by this, having to replace cheap drugs with something new, which they can patent and control.

      Come on, enough with the tired "big bad evil phamaceutical company" conspiracy theory crap. For being so incredibly evil and selfish, they sure have cured a whole bunch of different diseases the past 50+ years. The way your talk, its like you think the companies are introducing viruses just to make cures for them. I wonder if you will change your thinking if you ever have, God forbid, cancer, heart disease, or fertility problems. Probably not...

      Just because they don't give away their hard-earned discoveries for free doesn't make them evil. If you don't like it, don't use their discoveries! You can get 1970's era drugs real cheap generically. Good luck surviving.

      Brian Ellenberger

      Brave people don't mod down, they reply. True cowards use overrated.

      • Re:Think Cigarettes company brand Crack... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rarose ( 36450 ) <<rob> <at> <robamy.com>> on Sunday July 25, 2004 @09:58PM (#9798026)
        What have the pharmas cured in the past 50 years?

        No... For the past 50 years they've been concentrating on *treatment* not *cures*. Because they don't want a one time sale... they want an annuity.

        If Salk hadn't of cured Polio when he did, we wouldn't have a cure for it.... nope, we'd have a dozen different drugs to allow people to live better with it.
        • >No... For the past 50 years they've been concentrating on
          >*treatment* not *cures*. Because they don't want a one
          >time sale... they want an annuity.

          This poster nails it. Cancer cure? Nope. Lots of expensive "treatments", though. Diabetes? No cure. AIDS? No cure. Some track record there, big pharma. And this after *taxpayers* have shoveled tens of billions of dollars of cash at big pharma, in the form of patent protections, tax breaks, subsidies and research grants.

          Yet another corporate s

  • I heard this on the radio... (Score:4, Informative)

    by maharg ( 182366 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:34PM (#9796375) Homepage Journal
    .. basically, it's gonna deaden the highs. You won't be able to get much more than a mild effect off of anything. I don't really see how this would stop you being physically addicted to something though.
    • .. basically, it's gonna deaden the highs.

      That's something that bothers me though.. Someone in love goes through some incredibly wonderful highs, that are analogous to drug addiction and/or mental illness. But it's GREAT! Would someone immunized against a coke/heroin high grow up with a sort of 'yeah whatever' attitude towards love? And if they figure out that's why all their relationships have fallen apart after a couple weeks, will they be able to sue the government for basically wrecking their life?

  • Placebos (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tunabomber ( 259585 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:35PM (#9796379) Homepage
    How about they just give all the children a shot of sugar water and then say that they are "vaccinated"? Then they'd never try drugs because there'd be no point (or so they'd think).

    • Re:Placebos (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DarkElf109 ( 799937 )
      That's like saying that somebody who knows he can't die won't do normally life-threatening things. People sometimes throw themselves off buildings because they were told by higher powers that they would fly (usually drug induced dreams, or the likes). I say that they just create a "cure" for the addictions, something that will get rid of them. You can't undo the damage, but, if people realize the mistake they've made, at least they'd have the ability to stop.

  • The study didn't eliminate the effects of cocaine. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by topynate ( 694371 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:35PM (#9796380)
    It reduced them. Now, suppose you snort a line, and you don't feel high enough? What're you going to do?

    Yeah, no shit! And higher doses of coke are supposed to be better for you, are they?

    • Well, crack cocaine produces a more extreme high than the powdered form. Wouldn't you agree that crack cocaine is more debilitating?

      an increase in demand isn't going to cause the price of cocaine to go down. the physical effects are likely to be the same, assuming that this vaccine works by priming the immune system to attack the drugs. I think this could work.

      However, I wouldn't be surprised if some folks experienced a serious anaphilactic reaction. Maybe they're accounting for this somehow...

  • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I think Timothy Leary is appropriate here ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by miskatonic alumnus ( 668722 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:37PM (#9796390)
    The Two Commandments for the Molecular Age

    Thou shalt not alter the consciousness of thy fellow men.

    Thou shalt not prevent thy fellow man from altering his or her own consciousness.

  • The fools! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ChronoWiz ( 709439 )
    Drug abuse is a sign of other social problems, it is a symptom of greater problems. Simply attacking the symptom wont help anything. Also this vaccine would take away any last shreds of personal responsibility in the matter, entrusting big brother to look after you and know which receptors in your brain shouldn't be binded to.

    • Re:The fools! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Oxygen99 ( 634999 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:57PM (#9796485)
      See, I'm not sure that drug abuse is necessarily the sign of greater problems any more. I used to, but then I realised that almost every civilization that ever existed has invented several creative forms of getting wasted. Hell, even elephants and monkys have been known to get ripped to the tits on various forms of fermented sugars and berries.

      If reality is so boring that even chimps can't stand it, what chance have we got?!

    • Re:The fools! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by spacecadetglow ( 790516 )
      I completely disagree with you on that one. Many people use drugs as a form of experimentation or for spiritual purposes. Classifying all drug users as the same thing is just ignorant.

  • Other, more urgent drugs (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:40PM (#9796411)
    Instead of taking care of making heroin or morphine non-addictive, they should start with nicotine and alcohol, both of which are a lot cheaper than any other drugs and cause ravages in the population.

    So while they think about far-fetched solutions to hard drug abuses, *I* have to keep struggling not to light a cigarette again, despite the tremendous cravings I have regularly, even afters years of quitting, so I don't have to go back see my lung specialist again.

    But I guess fighting alcohol and tobacco abuse would remove an easy source of income for the government eh? Cheap lying bastards, I can't think a a worse bunch of hypocrits than those who profit from the sale of alcohol and tobacco and pretend to fight the addiction too...

  • I don't think so. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Internet_Communist ( 592634 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:43PM (#9796421) Homepage
    What the fuck, vaccinating against drugs? What next, mandatory chemical castration? This is ridiculous. I'm already fed up enough with the endless war on drugs and now this. When will governments get it into their heads that prohibition doesn't stop anything. If you want to go do drugs fine. If you want to tell me not to do drugs, fine. Then to alter someone elses free will accordingly so? What if suddenly I told one of these anti-drug fanatics that something they enjoy doing is now illegal, no matter how "innocent" it seems. I don't think these people really care about the effects their actions have in the long run, as long as they have the delusion that they're in a safer place or what not.

    You're all going to die, and so are your kids. Get over it.

  • absurd (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jeremy Erwin ( 2054 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:44PM (#9796427) Journal
    In the UK, there have already been a number of serious measles epidemics (with attendant deaths) because parents are overplaying the risk of the MMR vaccine. Now, it seems to me that nicotine addiction, while serious, can be avoided in a manner that measles exposure cannot. Mass vaccinations against heroin have marginal utility for the vast majority of recipients, while exposing those same recipients to any number of side-effects.
  • Childhood immunisation would provide adults with protection from the euphoria that is experienced by users, making drugs such as heroin and cocaine pointless to take.

    ...meaning the only way to get a feeling of satisfaction is to work, consume, breed, obey, belong, and distract oneself with silly mass-produced consumer items...

    if science were able to produce a 'happy pill' that had no side-effects, no addiction issues, or any other consequences, it would still be knifed in the bed and made illegal. othe

    • But it's not just the leisure class that would be hurt if we all became suddenly unproductive and a bunch of slackers. In fact it's the "working man" that would be hurt the most, since they rely on their back-breaking labor just to survive.
  • I am sure that you could convince yourself that it's the right thing to do, but overall, it just sounds like a bad idea.

    I am sure that with certain types of logic, such as -- "take this vaccine or go to jail", it would all of a sudden become a very good idea. Then again, another line can also, in certain circumstances, seem to be a good idea.

    One should try to not use drugs on one's own first. If it really doesn't work, and you are certain that death is imminent, of course it's a good idea. In other words
  • What's next, vaccinating against rebellious independant thoughts? No, I don't like this. Not one bit..

  • Leave my vices alone! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Saeger ( 456549 ) <(farrellj) (at) (gmail.com)> on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:48PM (#9796446) Homepage
    "It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." -- Abraham Lincoln [cyber-nation.com]

    --

  • After a nation wide program to get rid of addiction, Doctors now find that people are addicted to the anti-addiction vaccine.

  • Wrong path to the cure (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sefert ( 723060 )
    Hi - a good friend of mine has just finished her doctoral thesis in neuroscience, specializing in addiction in particular. It is interesting that you can vaccinate against against a given drug, but the author of this thread is right - it is pretty appalling, because although you can block the receptors for a given neurotransmitter, that receptor is used by your body for 'normal' highs and lows. I think this is perhaps a good idea for people with heroin addictions already, but as a preventative measure it
    • searching on the web, apparently the mechanism is to trick the immune system into attacking the drug molecules - having the immune system destroy the moleculues of the "stuff" that gets you high, so you never get high because it never reaches the brain.

      I am guessing that th9s "super-virus" that they are talking about might do the same thing - attack the molecules of the chemicals that get you high as if they were harmful bacteria or something.

      Interesting. I don't know if I like it. Although there might be

  • quick fix mentality (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dekeji ( 784080 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @04:58PM (#9796490)
    It's the usual quick-fix mentality. Instead of asking what problems cause people to turn to drugs (mental disease, poverty, social problems, etc.), a syringe is supposed to fix it. It's the same quick fix mentality that dominates so much of politics, and it's not going to work.

    Instead of some people sedating their problems and imposing health care costs on everybody else, which is bad enough, you are going to have the same people doing something else self-destructive and probably even more destructive to others.

    And for that quick fix, you risk several deaths a year from medical mistakes (wrong injection, infection, etc.) during vaccination, as well as unknown long-term consequences and the possibility that important future drugs won't work.

    • Re:quick fix mentality (Score:5, Insightful)

      by martinX ( 672498 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @06:22PM (#9796916)
      "What problems cause people to turn to drugs"?

      There is no problem. DRUGS ARE FUN. It's only when it gets to be a habit that the fun stops.

      • Re:quick fix mentality (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Larthallor ( 623891 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @11:13PM (#9798385)
        Actually, that IS the problem: Drugs are TOO fun. They are often times more fun than other things in people's lives that turn out to be useful to society. Like work, friends, and family. If none of these (or any other) areas of your life are very appealing compared to being high, you tend to get high instead of spending time with them. Which tends to make work, friends, and family even less enjoyable, or not even available. And since drugs can be taken in doses much greater than their natural analogs, they often are more fun, almost by the biological definition of the word.

        You have a reward system in your brain that has evolved for hundreds of millions of years to promote evolutionarily useful behavior. Drugs skirt right around this system and end up promoting one behavior; getting high again. And, since, as mentioned above, the doses can be so much higher (or bind tighter) than natural versions, you get habits and desires burned into your brain quickly and deeply.

        Ever hear of "thinking with your genitals"? Much of that "thinking" is attributable to the reward system in your brain. Tapping into that with drugs is like hypnotizing yourself that doing drugs is what you want. You create a new, often dangerous behavior that becomes instinctual along the lines of sex because it uses the same pathways as sex!
  • I can't help but think we'll have a "next stage" in the world of drugs where the pharmaceutical companies sell drugs that technically get you high, but in ways that the man finds worthwhile. Imagine "Glaxo Endeavor" -- the morale of cocaine, the energy of meth, but the calm of atavan, and none of the side effects of the others.

    I sometimes think that the anti-depressants are partway there, especially the way their advertised. I'm just surprised that the pharmaceutical companies aren't farther along in mak

    • Whether or not "getting high" in western culture is acceptable depends on whether or not the drug can be used to induce you into becoming more productive to feed your dependence on the buzz. If it's not addictive, it competes with (and beats) other drugs that are. If it makes you *less* productive, then you have much less to offer the producers the more you use their product.

      If, for example, some analogue of marijuana had stimulant properties, making it fun to do menial factory work, then it would be OK.

  • Are they nuts?!?!?! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cybergrue ( 696844 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:01PM (#9796502)
    OK, the way I understand that this scheme would work is the same way as other vaccinations, training the immune system to react against the substance introduced in the vaccine. The problem is that drugs work by triggering recepters in the brain, recepters for substances the body produces naturally.

    Worse case scenario, the immune system eaither mis-learns or mutates its defences, and starts attacking the bodys own chemicals. The body produces small ammounts of morphine to regulate pain. Heroin addicts take so much that the body attems to regulate by producing less morphine. When a heroin adic goes through withdrawl, his body essentiall has no natural morhine in it, hence constant pain. If the immune system was trained to destroy morphine, then the recipient could be in a perminent withdrawl. Nicotine mimics a natural nuro-transmitter in the brain. I would hate to see what would happen if a autoimmune reaction against that nuro-transmitter happened.

    Complex systems react unpredicably when disrupted. We don't know enough abou the human body to interfear with it in this way.

    • We don't know enough abou the human body to interfear with it in this way.

      However, without interfering with it in this way, we will never know enough. Scientific advances always come at great risk and often people die along the way. Such is the cost of progress.

  • Negative Effects? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by autarkeia ( 152712 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:03PM (#9796516) Homepage

    This is rather remarkable in that there is no discussion of the risks of such a treatment. Drugs generally work by either mimicking neurotransmitters themselves, mimicking their precursors, or by mimicking other chemicals that cause a release of neurotransmitters. This is true of both recreational drugs and prescription drugs like Prozac or Zoloft.

    Cocaine, for instance, is known to work by effecting a massive release of dopamine into the brain, which is then reuptaken quickly, providing the high. Alcohol similarly effects a release of GABA (among other neurotransmitters), while GHB is actually a precursor to GABA itself and is converted thus in the brain.

    It would seem to me that messing with the pathways through which any given drug actually works, unless it is almost impossibly specific, would mess with the normal operation of the brain. What's to say that a "vaccine" designed to prevent cocaine's method of activity won't prevent or at least diminish all such activity in the brain? Parkinson's Disease is caused at least partially by screwy dopamine levels in the brain. Who knows if injecting people with a virus that prevents rushes of dopamine won't affect the normal rushes of dopamine that occur during life, like after a particularly good orgasm or a 10K-run?

    It just sounds like fucking with neurotransmitters, especially on a genetic level, is a recipe for disaster.

  • All this would do is make some drugs ineffective - which means the addiction market - and it is a market - will merely switch to other drugs.

    Eventually one would be found that could not be inoculated against without major biochem advances, and that drug would become the new primary method of addiction.

    More likely, this whole thing is sponsored by the "legal" drug purveyors - the booze makers.

    Anybody see booze mentioned in that article?

  • what happens when you find yourself injured in later life and morphine based painkillers no longer work?

    So you're assuming that because it blocks the euphoric effects that it will also block the painkilling effect? This is not necessarily the case.

  • ah, the old puritan mentality... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by painehope ( 580569 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:06PM (#9796527)
    if it feels good, it must be bad. And we ( as in the government, religion, society ) have the right to tell you what to do, even in the privacy of your own home or head.

    I understand the issue of addiction, and the problems that addiction poses to society. This is one way of addressing it, but it is a morally dubious one. It removes the essentials of choice, which is a prime factor in what makes us human. It is also the cornerstone of a lot of religious tenets, which will lead once again to the unwashed christian masses sponsoring something that goes directly against their religious beliefs ( like christians who support the death penalty, where's the "thou shalt not kill" commandment again? ). So, rather than addressing the problem of addiction with personal help ( which is a morally unquestionable stance - you want help, we'll give it to you ), and treating the attendant problems ( crime - legalize drugs, diseases - re-instate needle exchange programs and allow sex ed to be taught in schools ) in a humane and efficient manner, we will embark down the slippery slope that "vaccines" for this stuff offer.

    How long after a vaccine for drugs if implemented, will we have a vaccine for violence? And how long after that will we all be mindless zombies, in a perfect semblance of "health", all marching to the beat of our corporate/religious masters? That is a state worse than 1984. 1984 was about manipulation and control. We're already there to a degree ( watched the news lately? In multiple countries? They are fucking lying to us, so blatantly in many cases that it will blow your top to actually dig into the facts ), but at least when you're being manipulated, you can be awakened. What happens when you're vaccinated or genetically altered to the point where you can't get high, can't feel love, anger, pain, joy, any of the things that make us human? Can't choose between right or wrong? I would rather die myself.

    And before anyone gets on my case about not understanding the problem, understand that I do. I've been strung out. Badly. I spent the better part of a decade putting cocaine, speed, and heroin in my arms, nose, and lungs. But I also understand that a lot of drugs have their uses. Acid won't ruin your life ( unless you're stupid enough to take way too much, but tylenol will do that as well ). Everyone should have one good trip in their life. It's fun and teaches you a lot about yourself. Cocaine has a lot of useful medicinal properties, but as a recreational drug it's useless and far too destructive. Alcohol is one most addictive and destructive drugs around, yet it's legal almost everywhere in the world. Etc. - they're just chemicals people.

    What's scary is how we react to the issues that come up because of these chemicals. If it weren't drugs, it would be something else that exposes the weaknesses in our moral logic. And it is ultimately an issue of morality. Not the morality that all these soapbox baptist neocon preachers go on about, but actual human morality that rises out of ability to reason. What the Western world was based on.
  • Childhood immunisation would provide adults with protection from the euphoria that is experienced by users

    Call me too far left if you want, but protection from euphoria? That's a worrying precedent. Maybe I'm being too Timothy Leary here, but if people want to try something on their own bodies, they should be allowed to - drugs or no drugs, why should the goverment or a corporate entity have the power to give us 'protection from euphoria';

    From dictionary.com

    euphoria ( P ) Pronunciation Key (y-f

  • Clinical trials showed that addiction-free patients stopped watching TV, shopping, eating fast food, driving, watching sports, and posting to Slashdot. Patients use of marijuana, MDMA, LSD and denim was unaffected.

  • Equilibrium. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by caluml ( 551744 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMspamgoeshere.calum.org> on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:19PM (#9796587) Homepage
    I watched Equilibrium [imdb.com] again this weekend. How long until governments want us all like little sheep, not feeling emotions, tracking our every movement, communication, meeting, just going to work, and enjoying the state proscribed and approved entertainment?
    Download, I, er mean rent this film and watch it.

  • Vaccine (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Sunspire ( 784352 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:26PM (#9796625)
    If they really wanted to get rid of a lot of crime and health problems and save the world billions of dollars, here's what they should do:

    Do exactly the opposite of what they're doing now. Concede that drugs can never be eliminated and instead work towards negating all the negative aspects of drugs one by one.

    Research safe and approved alternatives that would provide the desired good feeling without the side effects or the addictiveness. Pop a pill in the evening, but be up for work next morning without a hangover. Beats getting wasted at the bar.

    Make the stuff relatively cheap, driving the black market and oranized crime out of the drug business.

    The idea is to provide a safe and supervised alternative. By supervised I mean the stuff shouldn't be provided to minors or lunatics. There should be heavy penalties for driving while under influence and/or technical solutions to make it impossible. For instance, in some places in Europe they've installed alcohol-locks in cars that seem to work pretty well.

    Why it will never happen in the US:
    - The tobacca and alcohol lobby would bury anyone who tried to push it.
    - Unfortunately for a lot of people this sort of pragmatic solution is unacceptable. It's not about eliminating crime or saving lives, it's about legislating (their) morality.
    - Once you've spent billions on something stupid it's hard to pull the plug and admit defeat. Those who've worked in IT sees this every day, some stupid project is beyond all salvation and everybody knows it but more money is being inject solely because a shitload has already been spent.

  • Professor Nutt (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EinarH ( 583836 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:45PM (#9796718) Journal
    Professor Nutt, head of psychopharmacology at the University of Bristol and a senior member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, said: "People could be vaccinated against drugs at birth as you are against measles. You could say cocaine is more dangerous than measles, for example. It is important that there is a debate on this issue. This is a huge topic - addiction and smoking are major causes of premature death."
    I don't understand the reasoning behind his comparison to measles. There are some _major_ differences between cocaine addiction and measles.
    1. Measles are transmitted via a virus vs. cocaine which is self inflicted.
    2. When you vaccinated a certain percantage of the population the immunisation of the potential transmitters make it almost impossible for the virus to spread. Cocaine will spread by dealers regardless of other cocaine users. You need a measle infected or virus infected person to spread measles, you don't need a cocaine user to spread cocaine. The only way to ensure removal of a cocaine market would be to enforce a very high vaccination rate. And even then you are not guarantted any effect. It will take atleast 25 years with vaccination before one will now how well it works.
    3. A measle vaccination guarantees that something like 99.5& of those vaccinated won't get measles. How will the coacaine vaccination deal with new synthetic cocaine variants?
    4. Ultimatly people chooses to use cocaine (at least the first time) because of the stimulation, if one could neutralize cocaine people will find other drugs.
    5. Last time I check measles causes some 800000 deaths each year (yes that is eight-hundred thousand). And that is with extensive vaccination programs in the western world and several campaigns in the third world. Cocaine is not even close.

    And the concept of "preamature death" is a bit extended and diffuse. Before the medics and the health system concentrated on diseases randomly striking people and it classified those deaths as "premature deaths". But now they also (correctly) focus on more or less self inflicted diseases. How long should the society go in order to protect it's citizens against "premature death". Sure it's possible to go all the way and create a nanny state by enforcing thousands of authoritarian rules. But I just don't understand the rationale behind such a policy.

    And just because the medical industry are willing to make a buck on extensive vaccination of a self-inflicted disease where is the similatity between protecting the population agains random diseases and protecting everyone agains something that some individuals chooses to inflict upon themselves?

  • Some Info On The Vaccines (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vajrabum ( 688509 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:45PM (#9796719)
    Here's some information on the vaccines mentioned in the article. There's one from Xenova [xenova.co.uk] and another developed by Scripps [scripps.edu] . Both work by creating antibodies to Cocaine. The Xenova vaccine has had a phase II trial. I wonder if the specificity of the antibodies is really a settled question. If not, then you might find that pleasure, pain, and sex or something more subtle wouldn't be quite the same thing again. Not something I'd want to mess with. It seems silly, if not scary to be considering giving it to children at this point. Here are the folks at the UK Brain, Science, Addiction, and Drugs [foresight.gov.uk] although they don't have much up.

  • Protected from euphoria (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Viadd ( 173388 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:55PM (#9796774)
    "Childhood immunisation would provide adults with protection from the euphoria that is experienced by users".

    "Meanwhile, experts at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, have developed a super-virus, harmless to humans, which produces proteins that can block or reduce the effects of cocaine."

    "The Ministry of Love is developing a simple operation that reduces the drive towards dangerous sex acts by eliminating the risk of orgasm."

    One of those sentences is not in the article.

  • Department of Pre-Crime (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PMuse ( 320639 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @05:57PM (#9796787)
    I'm astounded. What has anyone of these children done to deserve forced-injection with anything? Manditory vaccination is something we do for communicable diseases, not lifestyle choices!

    We have trouble convincing even at-risk first responders to accept vaccination against things like anthrax that some one might actually try to kill them with. And these people want to force vaccinate everyone against cocaine, beer and cigarettes? Insane.

  • They Got it Backwards (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bob9113 ( 14996 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @06:05PM (#9796835) Homepage
    Childhood immunisation would provide adults with protection from the euphoria that is experienced by users, making drugs such as heroin and cocaine pointless to take.

    What an idiotic approach. The problem with drugs is not the temporary feeling of euphoria, the problem is that some of them are physically addictive and some have negative side effects. Riding a roller coaster, running a 10K, or having sex provides a temporary feeling of euphoria. Temporary feelings of euphoria are good - they are what our genes give us in return for being their host and propagation vector. The entire hedonistic meaning of life is the pursuit of temporary feelings of euphoria. Without those temporary feelings of euphoria the only reasons to go on living are religion and socialism. What will they do next? put all the children on Ritalin? Solve the physical addiction problem, eliminate the negative side effects, and promote healthy recreational use.

  • UK (Score:5, Insightful)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @06:19PM (#9796905) Journal
    Oh come on this is such a joke. Im not scared for a second that this would ever happen. There are always wackos [davidblunkett.org.uk] around who come up with [qwghlm.co.uk] totally fundamentalist/totalitarian/insane ideas that you never hear about again. This country isnt as big-brother as you think, we might not have a bill of rights (but we do have the data protection act and drinking at 18), but the people here have a common sense (usually) attitude, and its always ok to dislike the government (ive yet to see a patriotic flag-waving person who thinks Blair is the greatest and we should back him all the way). One thing we do have allot of is mad scientists: Professor David Nutt, speaks for itself really.

  • Super Stupid Idea!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by logicnazi ( 169418 ) <gerdes@inv[ ]ant.org ['ari' in gap]> on Sunday July 25, 2004 @06:29PM (#9796942) Homepage
    So I have no doubt this page is filled with outraged posts about this idea. However, I come at this from a little differnt angle. I don't have any problem with government mandated mind alteration so long as it really made people happier/better off (the reason that we tend to view it as so objectionable it is always imagined to produce a situation that is on the whole less pleasant). However, this is simply a BAD idea which quite likely will make things significantly less pleasent.

    The suggestion of vaccinating children againt morphine or cocaine reminds me of the claims of supposed health benefits for drinking radioactive water (it was eventually banned when someone drank so much their lower jaw fell off). People are jumping over a nifty new technology they don't understand and injudisciously pushing it on the public. I don't say this lightly, I am usually quite disgusted when people cry wolf about new technologies and demand they adhere to a higher safety standard than current options. However, just as in the radioactive water example it isn't merely that we can't guarantee something isn't harmfull but we have good reason to suspect something might be harmfull.

    In this example scientists are blindly screwing with important neural circutry. This is analagous to inserting random bytes into your kernel until affects the option you desire. Even if on observation in a differnt enviornment from the production one (rats instead of humans) the kernel still appeared stable you wouldn't trust it for production. Even worse people age, go through puberty etc.. unlike a computer so even a vaccine that seems fine now might manefest problems years later. Also in people we care more about just their external behavior, what if this makes people unhappy.

    This is precisely what I fear. More and more evidence keeps mountaing that all sorts of everyday activities cause the same brain activity as drug use. This includes things like eating chocolate and socialization. In fact many important experiences, like the glow of love or post orgasmic bliss are caused by natural versions of illicit drugs (endorphines affect the same receptors as opiates like heroin). Most likely the same receptors these drugs target exist to give important human experiences and perhaps drug addiction is nothing more than an extreme version of desire caused by enjoyment. Quite likely if we give someone these vaccines you would permanetly impair their happiness or experience.

    These drugs might be usefull for some severe addicts who desperatly want to get clean but don't have the willpower. The drug lifestyle might be doing them more harm then they risk from this vaccine. Unfortunatly, since they are quiting narcotics (or continuing) it is virtually impossible to tell if the vaccine impaired their natural enjoyment of life (feeling this way can be a sideeffect of longterm drug use). While I'm normally all for testing I'm leary of even giving *one* human test subject this vaccine unless it is their only reasonable hope. Death is one thing but being still alive and finding you can't enjoy life like you were before is simply dreadfull.

  • My favorite parts of the article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MourningBlade ( 182180 ) on Sunday July 25, 2004 @07:58PM (#9797429) Homepage

    My favorite part was talking about "spiraling addiction."

    "Last week, the IoS revealed that cocaine use had trebled in Britain with increasing numbers of users switching to highly addictive crack cocaine."

    This is pretty much directly linked to Britain's rise in amphetamine interdiction raids. Amphetamines and cocaine are often used interchangeably, depending on market rate. When they start busting more cocaine, you'll see a rise in amphetamine use, with the re-emergence of mainlining amphetamines ("speed") - on par with crack cocaine.

    My other favorite part:

    According to the Government's own figures, the cost of drug addiction - through related crime and health problems - to the economy is 12bn [pounds] a year.

    Perhaps it would be better to say that the cost of the drug war is 12+ bn pounds a year. The only way to know the cost of drug addiction would be to know the approximate number of addicts and the approximate yearly public cost of a legal addict.

    Oh, that's right: Britain does* have those numbers. There used to be a program for distributing legal heroin to addicts in Britain, and the entire program was quite cheap. Certainly not 12 billion pounds a year: heroin maintenance wasn't even a major budget issue.

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