[extropy-chat] The Ultimate Anti-Drug

Fri Sep 24 13:01:38 UTC 2004

The article posted seems a little misleading. I was under the  
impression that scientists were not trying to change the fundamental  
brain chemistry of people. Rather they were trying to generate antibody  
reactions to specific drugs (e.g., cocaine, nicotine). Basically the  
hope is that antibodies will bind to specific drugs and make them too  
big to pass the blood-brain barrier. This technique doesn't change the  
brains of the users, so the drug cravings if they exist will continue  
as usual. There seem to be real problems in generating enough  
antibodies in the blood. So the basic effect is to mute, not remove the  
effectiveness of drug taking. This technique is being designed (at  
least in the US) with the hope of helping adult drug users, as an  
adjunct to on going therapy. I would be interested if people know more  
about this. Here are some interesting articles:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi? 
cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12669472
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi? 
cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=14761239
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi? 
cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12901575

best, patrick

On 24 Sep 2004, at 08:00, Emlyn wrote:

> I wonder if you can take this stuff as an adult. I wouldn't touch it
> with a barge pole, but being able to rid yourself of the ability to
> feel irrational euphoria might be quite appealing to some
> transhumanists. Certainly it'd be another item for the transhuman
> morphological toolkit.
>
> -- 
> Emlyn
>
> http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *
>
>
>
> On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 22:24:44 -0700 (PDT), Adrian Tymes
> <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
>> The idea is to vaccinate against disease early in
>> life, while the drugs might be needed late in life?
>> Anti-anti-drug.  Possibly it could even be developed
>> during the trial of the original anti-drug - biotech
>> moves just that fast these days.
>>
>>
>>
>> --- Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> A drug to stop people experiencing narcotic-induced
>>> euphoria? Well, ok
>>> I guess. But the idea of giving this to kids (ie:
>>> people not able to
>>> give informed consent) is totally crap. But then I
>>> don't support
>>> genetic modification of kids (or of embryos destined
>>> to become kids)
>>> either (except in cases where to not do so would be
>>> clearly harmful).
>>>
>>> -----
>>> The Ultimate Anti-Drug
>>> By David Borden, AlterNet. Posted August 10, 2004
>>>
>>> http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/19520/
>>>
>>> Biotech corporations are formulating the drug to end
>>> all drugs – a
>>> vaccine against the 'disease' of drug-induced
>>> euphoria.
>>>
>>> A government-convened panel of scientists in the UK
>>> is considering
>>> what the Independent properly termed "a radical
>>> scheme" – a proposal
>>> to use vaccines, currently under development by
>>> pharmaceutical
>>> corporations, to immunize children against
>>> "euphoria" from drugs such
>>> as heroin, cocaine and nicotine. Panel members say
>>> the plan would
>>> target children who are at risk of becoming drug
>>> users in the future.
>>> They have not said how it would be determined who is
>>> at risk.
>>>
>>> It's only a matter of time until some of our own
>>> drug war zealots or
>>> anti-drug mad scientists take this idea up here in
>>> the US.
>>>
>>> An anti-drug vaccine differs fundamentally from
>>> vaccines designed to
>>> protect individuals from diseases like measles, the
>>> example a
>>> committee member raised to the Independent's
>>> reporter. Measles is a
>>> disease that no one, or virtually no one, wants to
>>> catch. It is
>>> communicable and could therefore spread to large
>>> numbers of people if
>>> unchecked. Perhaps measles vaccinations should not
>>> be compulsory, if
>>> we believe in freedom of choice. But the wisdom of
>>> such vaccinations
>>> is clear, and it's legitimate for society to
>>> encourage and make them
>>> widely available.
>>>
>>> An anti-drug vaccine, on the other hand, is designed
>>> to produce a
>>> permanent chemical alteration to an individual's
>>> brain chemistry to
>>> disable one's ability to experience certain mind
>>> states that humans
>>> are designed to be able to experience – and which
>>> despite their
>>> downsides many people desire to experience. Though
>>> heroin and cocaine
>>> are illegal, that may not always be the case, and
>>> nicotine is legal.
>>> Legal or not, it is the individual's human right to
>>> seek such
>>> experiences. But even if one disagrees with that
>>> last statement, to
>>> alter a human being's brain and body to make the
>>> experience
>>> impossible, forever, is an extremist approach.
>>>
>>> The "side effects" of such an alteration are hard to
>>> predict. Heroin
>>> is an opiate that was developed for pain control,
>>> for which it is
>>> still used in some countries. It is derived from
>>> morphine and hence
>>> fundamentally similar to many other pain medicines.
>>> Would a heroin
>>> vaccine interfere with the ability of a pain patient
>>> to gain relief
>>> through other opiate medications?
>>>
>>> Cocaine is also used as a medicine, not for such a
>>> large number of
>>> patients as the opiates, but important for the ones
>>> for whom it is
>>> used. Would a cocaine vaccine interfere with a
>>> patient's ability to
>>> gain those medical benefits? Would it interfere with
>>> the potency of
>>> similar drugs like novocaine? Does nicotine have
>>> current or potential
>>> medical uses that would be stymied by a vaccine?
>>>
>>> Not necessarily – the physiological processes
>>> occurring in pain relief
>>> are not identical to those involved in opiate use to
>>> produce,
>>> euphoria, for example, or for relieving the cravings
>>> of an addiction.
>>> Nor, however, are they entirely dissimilar – it's
>>> the same substance,
>>> after all. How can we determine in advance, with
>>> surety, that no such
>>> problems will arise?
>>>
>>> The anti-drug vaccine is a fundamentally different
>>> proposition in this
>>> respect as well, for at least two reasons. One is
>>> that it is not
>>> necessary, as effective alternatives for reducing or
>>> avoiding the
>>> harms that sometimes from drug addiction are already
>>> available –
>>> moderation, harm reduction, and abstinence.
>>>
>>> The other reason is the sheer scale, in time and in
>>> numbers of people,
>>> that would be needed to thoroughly assess an
>>> anti-drug vaccine's risks
>>> and effects. It's not something that can be
>>> accomplished in one or
>>> even 10 years, with any reasonable number of people.
>>>
>>> Take the number of people needed for a proper drug
>>> trial. Then divide
>>> that by the fraction of them who statistically are
>>> likely to suffer
>>> from serious medical conditions in the future that
>>> require with
>>> opiates (a larger number) or cocaine (a smaller
>>> number). That much
>>> larger number of test subjects is the minimum number
>>> needed to ensure
>>> that the subset of the test subjects who will
>>> develop severe chronic
>>> pain and other serious conditions in the future will
>>> be available and
>>> still part of the study. There would need to be an
>>> ample number of
>>> them requiring heavy use of opiates. And the time
>>> scale is a lifetime,
>>> as the subjects would receive the vaccinations as
>>> children while the
>>> drugs are most often needed as medicines late in
>>> life.
>>>
>>> We're not talking thousands of test subjects, nor
>>> tens of thousands.
>>> We are talking about at least hundreds of thousands
>>> and probably
>>> millions or more – a substantial chunk of a
>>> generation – with
>>> statistically significant results not possible for
>>> the better part of
>>> a century, to determine with any degree of
>>> confidence that such
>>> vaccines will not interfere with important medical
>>> treatments later in
>>> life.
>>>
>>> If informed, consenting adults want to take an
>>> anti-drug vaccine, and
>>> if it could work on adults, maybe they should have
>>> that right. But the
>>> government should play no role in sponsoring, nor
>>> even encouraging,
>>> such a practice. An anti-drug vaccine for children
>>> is such a bad idea
>>> that it isn't even worth considering.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Emlyn
>>>
>>> http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software
>>> *
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