Plan to vaccinate babies against drugs (UK)

[Toma]

People are calling for the end of the War on Drugs, decrying it as a miserable failure, expensive in resources and human lives, a war of attrition that chews up more and more fodder without advancing at all. But here, at last, is the technology that has the potential to win the war on drugs.

The vaccine, as all vaccines, induces an immune response against the cocaine molecule. Antibodies bind to it and eliminate it before it reaches the receptors. Antibodies are highly specific, that's why they can bind to pathogens and avoid attacking the body's own cells. And antibodies do not pass the blood-brain barrier, so there's little chance of the vaccine disrupting any normal brain processes.

The problem with drugs is that their molecules are usually too small for them to be antigenic, whence the need to conjugate the cocaine molecule with a strongly antigenic protein carrier. That's why there weren't any drug vaccines until now and why this one is still not very effective.

But these are just technical hold-ups, and if there's anything we can count on, it's the progress of science. And when the vaccines will be effective, they will be introduced on a large scale -- who would oppose them? Everyone knows addiction is a bad thing.

On a positive note for psychedelic fans and tweakers, phenethylamines, tryptamines and possibly amphetamines would be poor candidates for vaccines, due to their similarity to serotonin (5-hydroxy-tryptamine) and dopamine (3,4-dihydroxy-phenethylamine). Antibodies against them could also attack peripheral or somatic 5-HT or DA, with disastruous consequences. LSD is way different, also a popular bogey, so we might say goodbye to it.

[Nagognog2]

Pure hypocrisy. It's a disease when they force the needle in your arm, or the scalpel to your frontal lobes. But you are convicted of being a criminal and placed in prison on the other hand by the same deciding regime. How about locking up people with cancer? What shall be the sentences for illnesses? Would 30 days be out of line for someone with a cold? What about the flu? 60 days unless it's an Asian varient? What would be the sentence proscribed for mononucleosis?

You get the idea.