In September of 2012, the national Institute on Drug Abuse issued a news release of advances to develop Vaccines against Cocaine, heroin abuse. It seems that developers have achieved promising preclinical results against cocaine and heroin. What they did was to use animals in a test and they were treated with the new vaccine and it produced high blood concentrations of anti-drug antibodies and what that did was to get the animals to exhibit sharply reduced behavioral responses to the drugs. In 2009 researchers at Baylor College of Medicine had a partial success in the first clinical trial on an anti-cocaine vaccine. What it showed at that time was some recipients generated strong antibody responses and reduced their cocaine intake, but others did not. When they did that test it affirmed that antidrug vaccines can protect against drugs’ psychoactive and behavioral effects and put some new energy into the search for other improved formulations.
There was a goal of the anti-drug vaccine and that was to induce the immune system to block the psychoactive effects of its target drug. It would go like this: when an anti-drug antibody encounters a molecule of the drug, the two combine to form a complex that is too large to pass from the bloodstream into the brain. Locked out of the brain, the drug cannot produce the rewarding effects that motivate continued use. Sometimes long term drug rehab may be the answer.
There were animals that were tested and with less cocaine reaching their brain, vaccinated rats exhibited weakened behavioral responses to the drug.
Now I have heard it all. There are some of us to begin with that get upset when scientists use animals to test theories. None the less these animals had a good time testing this theory and the theory is proving to be very workable. It would be a good thing if one could get a vaccine and then the drugs they so desperately need to keep taking would not have an effect on them.
Cocaine and heroin can be some of the most destructive drugs out there to date. I know many people who cannot shake the addiction to these drugs. Indeed if they could have access to a vaccine it may help them. The tests have only been done on animals and not on humans just yet. Until then it is in the interest of many people in this nation to not start using drugs to begin with.
Many people use cocaine socially when they are gathering with friends on the weekend. There are those that do not have the need to continue to do that all the rest of the week. There are those who will absolutely get addicted and then the drug takes over their lives. Don’t be one of those because having control over your day to day activities keeps your self esteem very high. Don’t mean to sound like a preacher but don’t get started is my one liner. If you know someone who needs help getting off drugs like cocaine and heroin, get them to an inpatient treatment center. Where they can detox in a natural way and not take drugs to get off a drug.
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