This Article in Newsweek talks about some of the new tools in the works to treat addiction. The exciting one to me is the hope for a vaccination that will trigger the body's immune response to attack and destroy drugs in the body so they don't make criminals high.

Imagine if, once a defendant was convicted for a drug-related crime, they had to take a shot that meant that drugs wouldn't work for them anymore?

If we could immunize criminals from cocaine, meth, and alcohol, that might result in a profound change in the criminal justice system.

I'm sure the ACLU would cry foul and say we all have a right to mind altering substances, though.

I think it is a good idea, if it really works. And why wait for a conviction? I am sure that most parents would want their childern to get the shot at whatever age is appropriate.

We already have plenty of drugs that are available for treatment of mental health issues. The number one problem in the intersection of drugs and treatment is having the patient accept and use the medication appropriately and consistently.

That's the beautiful thing about a true vaccination--they don't have to keep taking it. Some of these are mere treatments, but vaccination against dope is the ultimate.

Interestingly, the first addiction the article talks about is alcohol. The second was cigarettes.

How might Texans feel about an "immunization" to the effects of beer? Or cigarettes? And once you begin tinkering with basic brain chemistry you also have to begin wondering about other immunizations: religious fervor? Sex?

Presuming that such techniques will work, the ACLU might be the least of objectors.

Hey, I figure if you don't get a felony, you can smoke as many cigarettes and drink as much beer as you want. I haven't seen anyone denying the link between drugs, alcohol, and our business, though.

The beer brewers, distillers, cigarette makers, and folks who manufacture once-per-month addiction remedies won't like it though, will they?

I just find it hard to fathom that all the psychobable, prozac, electroshock, 12-step, outpatient, inpatient, group therapy, pee-in-the-cup stuff might someday be replaced by a vaccination. I'm very skeptical of all the pills that change brain chemistry, but a shot that activates your immune system against dope--wow! How many of us know someone that has actually had smallpox or polio? I know one person. One! But look at all the people we see every day in our courthouses messed up by dope. Can you see it? Mind boggling.

"The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma."

from "A Brave New World"

I'm curious about how these vaccinations would work. Exactly how does it target the drugs, and which drugs would it work against? I'd be concerned that the vaccination would work equally against legal drugs, particularly anti-depressants. Interesting idea, though!

I think Anthony Burgess would be more apt than Aldous Huxley.

Then again, alot of people would reference Stanley Kubrick and Malcolm McDowell before they thought of Burgess.

Either way, behavior modification through chemical processes are simply a legalized way of handling a symptom, not a cause.

I dunno. If you can't fry your brain anymore because you're immune to dope, maybe you'll try to solve your problems another way.

I think there is a big difference between substitution, i.e. methadone, and innoculation, i.e. dope just doesn't work any more. It is more than treating symptoms, it is disease prevention.

Of course, it could become a cat-and-mouse game of addicts searching for new drugs they are not immune to while the doctors search for additional innoculations to shut the new drugs down.

Andrea's point is interesting--what if the innoculation to heroin means that all opiates are ineffective for you? Imagine what surgery would be like then? Ouch!

That's a good point, John. I'm thinking I'd opt out of divesting myself from being eligible for anaesthesia.