Word: heroinism
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...abusing drugs and alcohol? According to encouraging results from several lines of study, it seems that day may be closer than we thought. Researchers in labs around the world are now developing vaccines (not a pill, but an injection) to inoculate people against dangerously addictive substances such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. Within "one to 10 years, and closer to one year," says Dr. Frank Vocci, director of treatment research and development at the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), scientists may produce a vaccine against cocaine - one of the more promising areas of research - that can potentially help millions...
Unlike traditional anti-addiction approaches, such as 12-step programs, psychotherapy and older medications like methadone for heroin addicts or the nausea-inducing Antabuse for alcoholics, vaccines like TA-CD prevent the addictive substance from ever reaching the user's brain - that is, they inhibit the addictive cycle rather than respond to it. The goal is to eliminate the chemical cascade that results in the euphoric "high," which, in turn, sparks addiction - what comedian George Carlin once described this way: "What does cocaine make you feel like? It makes you feel like having more cocaine...
...been over a decade in the making, but the science behind it goes back much further. In the 1950s, researchers developed a vaccine to block fatal overdoses of the heart drug digitalis. In the 1970s University of Chicago researchers prompted monkeys to develop antibodies to heroin by attaching molecules of the drug to a protein from cow's blood. It was this model on which Kosten, who became interested in solving addiction as a medical student at Cornell, based TA-CD. Using the cholera bacterium as a vector is a crucial tweak in design; it allows the cocaine vaccine...
Meanwhile cocaine use continues to rise in other countries, particularly in Europe, where Kosten consults on similar vaccine research. He is also working on a methamphetamine vaccine in the U.S., and a heroin vaccine in China, where increasing heroin use has been linked to skyrocketing rates of AIDS and hepatitis. Unlike the vaccine against cocaine, the heroin vaccine faces a tricky complication: It may interfere with other important treatments. If its protection extends to other opiates, for example, it would prevent patients from responding to medically necessary drugs like morphine. The same potential concern applies to nicotine vaccines that...
Should the government give heroin addicts a drug that could save their lives in the event of a drug overdose—but that some believe will increase risky drug use? This might sound like a hypothetical question posed by Professor of Government Michael J. Sandel, but it’s a topic that the federal government and local governments across the country face. Unfortunately, many have decided not to directly give addicts the heroin antidote naloxone, commonly used by emergency personnel for over 35 years, for fear that addicts might be more reckless in their heroin use, more reluctant...