Posted on Gaia Health
A patent has been issued to a Mexican researcher for a heroin vaccine. There’s very little available about it so far, though the press has been treating it like a panacea. It’s being billed as a treatment for addicts, something that would keep them from craving narcotics. But is that a realistic scenario?
The vaccine would work by forcing the body to create antibodies to heroin. These antibodies would attack heroin molecules that enter the body. The heroin molecules would be unable to attach to opioid receptors, so opium cravings could not be satisfied and it would be impossible to get high from the drug.
The concept is fairly straightforward—but nothing else about it is. It presents a picture of happy narcotics addicts who go on with their lives, free of cravings. Somehow, the inability to satisfy cravings for the heroin high are going to end when the ability to satisfy those cravings is destroyed. That, at least, seems to be the theory.
But it makes no sense. The underlying reason for wanting an escape isn’t remedied. No consideration is given to the misery of withdrawal. We aren’t told whether the vaccine would be associated with only heroin, or if it might also be effective against morphine, opium, or any other narcotic. If it’s effective against only heroin, or possibly just a single variety of heroin, then the vaccine will be useless against any other narcotic.
Read the entire article here.
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