A Vaccine Against Drug Addiction

A professor at the Scripps Research Institute has dedicated the better part of his life to an incredible project that many have not even imagined. For thirty-seven years Kim Janda has been working on a vaccine for drug addicts that might someday free a substance abuser from their drug of choice. This doctor calls the process “simplistically stupid,” because it works a lot like other vaccines: a small amount of the foreign substance is introduced into the blood stream, which causes antibodies to go after it. However, the molecules of substances like nicotine and meth-amphetamines are too small for the bloodstream to detect, so he attaches the substance to a “larger protein that acts as a platform.” The last part of the vaccine is called an “adjuvant,” which is a cocktail of chemicals designed to attract attention, making antibodies go after a substance that usually would pass unnoticed. In the end, the main purpose is to blunt the effects of the drug so that it doesn’t have the same effect. For instance, a coke user, after receiving the vaccine, might say that the coke they are doing is “dirty” or “not worth their money,” because it ceases to have the same effect.

However, the article did introduce a number of ethical problems that I need to address. For instance, the vaccine is supposed to be administered to those already suffering from drug addiction, but what if it were used as a preventative? If you were a kid about to be sent off to college, how would you respond to your parents deciding to get you a drug vaccine? Also, the platforms in the vaccine are detectable for up to three months after it is administered, but the drug itself only stays in the system for a few days. So, conceivably your work could test for those platforms to see if you are a recovering drug addict, and possibly not hire you. Another thing that the doctor touched lightly upon is that even if this is someday developed and it works, it is not necessarily a cure for addiction. People who are addicted will look for any kind of high, so who is to say that if one drug stops working for them, they won’t try another? Addiction may end up being a much more complicated puzzle than we thought, and deadening the effects of one drug may not help.