August 08, 2004

• Wow. Where do you even begin? Who gets to decide which children are at risk - parents? government? Have there been long-range studies of how vaccination would affect a developing brain? Does disabling the brain from responding to cocaine with euphoria prevent non-drug-induced euphoria as well? I'm pretty sure that this isn't really coming that soon. The article said these vaccines are currently only being tested in adults (and only adult drug users, at that). Doing a clinical trial with children would be incredibly difficult, and costly, since it would have to run for many years. And even if the vaccines were approved for adults, you might see some independent doctors prescribing it off-label, but it certainly wouldn't be happening at government funded institutions like schools. But the biggest thing for me is that it treats drug use like disease. Perhaps drug abuse is like disease, but the majority of drug users are not addicts. IANACokehead, but I wouldn't want anyone taking away that route to euphoria just because there is some small possibility that I wouldn't be able to handle it.
• that's the most ridiculous thing ever. no discussion needed. it's a joke.
• In other news, Britian is banning orgasms, because the euphoria caused by sexual climax leads to anti-social behaviour.
• Down with human nature which is basically evil! Don't you realize euphoria comes from the devil? Turn the kiddies into wee automatons! So what if future joys are henceforth gone! It's worth it if they never get turned on! Never ever let these tots grow into thinking, feeling people! /sarcasm
• Just to play satan's loving yet stern advocate: If your family had a history of alcoholism and abuse, would you reconsider, if only for your own children?
• The notion of the vaccine, in and of itself, I don't find inherently wrong and in fact, it may benefit some people who make informed choices with full consent. If you are a recovering alcoholic with a family history of severe drug abuse, and you, for the sake of an example to your children, undertake it...go right ahead. It is the notion of innoculating children at the whim of the government or as a 'proactive' preventitive measure taken by paranoid, over-protective parents?) That is chilling. It is similar to forced sterilization, to say nothing of the unknown long-term consequences to the brain.
• My biggest concern, other than already stated ethical concerns, is that I find it nearly impossible to believe a vaccine could truly target just the pathways in the brain activated when, say, someone smokes a cigarette and not activated when anything else happens. Our brain's produce and release drug like chemicals, and respond to addiction-like cues under a number of circumstances. Shit, during the early stages of love there are amphetamine-like chemicals active in the brain. I am terrified of the collateral damage to people's brains.
• Wow. Puritanism in a vial. Rammed into your kids, so they can be joyless, productive members of society.
• Monkeyfilter: Puritanism in a vial. *giggle* But yeah, what rogerd said.
• I think it's really not anything to worry about until it's been tested for several more years. They wouldn't give it to children until it was tested on children. Also, does the school really have the right to do that to a kid without the parent's permission?

• They wouldn't give it to children until it was tested on children.

  When Pharmac, New Zealand's state drug purchasing agent, announced it was going to cease providing a variety of behaviour modification drugs for children because, while widely used both here and in the United States, they had never been tested and approved for use with children, the company who produces the drugs threatened to sue. I wouldn't bet they won't be used just because they haven't been tested.
• When you combine it with this little gem about how UK schoolchildren are to receive lessons on why downloading music is wrong, the poor wee mites are going to be having a terrible time.
• Heroin is chemically similar to most prescription painkillers. Does this mean that if you're vaccinated against heroin, you will also be immune to Vicodin, etc? That would certainly suck for people who have surgery, major injuries, etc. The article didn't have a lot of info on the mechanism these vaccines use, and it would be really interesting to know just how invasive they are.
• That's obsecenly stupid. I still hate drug tests more, though
• *passes fat blunt to muffpub*
• Ah. Joined Mofi to comment on this, not realizing that there was a 24-hour no-comment zone. Glad, though, that from the first comment, concern was expressed that natural biochemistry might be affected. I believe it would. Reaching back a few years to behavioral pharm, I recall that drugs only work on any given animal because it has some endogenous variant in its own system, which is why it has receptors for the drug. I can't see blocking synthetic opiates, for example, without also blocking endogenous opiates. It all sounds like some experiment that would have been actually attempted a few decades back, had they the science, and probably would have resulted in joyless, or perhaps, sociopathic subjects. Thanks for the key, Alice. Also, hi.
• I can't see blocking synthetic opiates, for example, without also blocking endogenous opiates. Ah, but think of the opportunities for the development of new drugs!
• Alice!? Who the...well everyone knows the rest.
• Go as Alice. When she's ten feet tall.
• Alice has been vaccinated against various psychoactive substances and doesn't know what you're talking about.