NEW VACCINES MAY DRUG-PROOF KIDS

The war on drugs may soon be over, but not because of legalization, stiffer
penalties, or a truce between cartels and prohibitionists. This uneasy
peace would come at the hands of pharmaceutical companies and biotech labs,
which are about to unleash the ultimate weapon: the antidrug vaccine.

One anti-cocaine vaccine, already shown to be safe for humans, prevents
people who snort coke from getting high.. Researchers are also testing
vaccines for nicotine. And results look promising for the eradication of
PCP abuse and methamphetamine addiction.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse has funded much of the development
cost - approximately $4.5 million since 1996. "Just as medications have
been developed for other chronic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes,
and cancer," writes NIDA in its five-year strategic plan, "drug addiction
is a disease that also merits medication for its treatment."

Looking at social ills through a medical lens is not a new phenomenon. By
studying disorders from alcoholism and compulsive gambling to attention
deficit disorder and depression, scientists have discovered not only
genetic factors responsible for so-called abnormal behavior, but also the
way such behavior affects the brain's neural map. According to Frank Vocci,
director of NIDA's Treatment Research and Development division, the
antidrug vaccines can provide a powerful weapon against substance
addiction, especially when combined with therapy and psychiatric medicine.
And vaccines, which unleash an onslaught of drug-busting antibodies, can do
what traditional treatment can't. "If a patient is in an emergency room
with high methamphetamine levels and experiencing a cardiovascular crisis,"
says Vocci, "antibodies would bind the drug up and cause the individual to
excrete it." In other words, an injection of antibodies could reduce the
specter of death by overdose to a bad '70s flashback.

Though scientists have long used vaccines to trick the immune system into
thwarting lethal diseases, the antidrug vaccines are a new breed, designed
to attack pleasure-inducing chemicals that the brain craves. Some of these
new vaccines use antibodies that bind to the illegal drug, render it
inactive, and then leave the bloodstream. Others remain potent for years.
This is the type of vaccine that purged the Western world of polio and
smallpox - and may put a choke hold on civil liberties.

The human affinity for altering perception reaches far back in the
evolutionary chain. If antidrug vaccines become widely available, parents
will be able to decide whether their kids will be able to get high - even
as adults, even recreationally. And governments could target certain
communities for vaccination. "Who is going to get it?" asks Peter Cohen, an
adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, who has written
on the legal implications of the vaccines. "Those who have a history of
cocaine abuse? Those who may be statistically likely to become addicts? Or
do you vaccinate everybody?"

Cohen argues everyone should get the shots, but so far the only human tests
have been done on addicts. In one experiment by Yale University this
spring, researchers vaccinated 34 former cocaine abusers living in a
residential treatment facility. That vaccine, called TA-CD, generates
antibodies that grab onto the upper as soon as it enters the bloodstream,
preventing the drug from bumrushing the brain.

The new vaccines have limitations. Namely, addicts could still get high if
they did enough lines. Enter Donald Landry, associate professor of medicine
at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, who's
researching so-called catalytic antibodies. With a load of them in your
bloodstream, you'd have to snort a lot of coke to feel any effect. So much
so that financial limitations (you'd have to spend a ton of money) and
physical needs (you'd have to stop and breathe) would kick in. "Everyone
attempting to quit cocaine can use the catalytic antibody," Landry says.

But if you can't get high from cocaine, you can get drunk on alcohol or
stoned on pot. Substance-abuse counselors say a vaccine alone won't solve
the problem of drug abuse, and shouldn't end up replacing more expensive -
and extensive - treatments that deal with the factors that lead to addiction.

"We're not going to run out of new and inventive things that are going to
make people high, but that doesn't mean a vaccine won't help for some
people," say Peter Kerr, a spokesman for the New York branch of Phoenix
House, who compares the use of antidrug vaccines to relying on the
synthetic opiate methadone to treat heroin addicts. "The primary emphasis
is relieving symptons. Counseling is an ancillary factor."

Unlike methadone, which is used to fight debilitating withdrawal symptoms,
or Anabuse, which causes and alcoholic to become violently ill upon
drinking, some vaccines can last a lifetime. There's no turning back. And
if the choice of a child is in the hands of a parent, or that of a prisoner
in the hands of the government, then involuntary vaccinations become the
result.

"It's hard to justify vaccinating a million children when only a small
percentage are at risk, even in an area where cocaine use is endemic," say
Landry.

The vaccines also raise questions of privacy. "Once you're vaccinated, you
have antibodies in your blood that would show up in a drug test," say
Cohen. "The least controversial solution is universal vaccination: You
wouldn't be stigmatizing any one group."

Yet mass vaccinations have always been controversial. "That's treating
people like cattle," says Joe Lehman, a spokesman for the Cato Institute, a
libertarian think tank. Lehman believes that there would be pressure to get
an antidrug vaccine, especially when it comes to insurance companies (who
might offer special premiums to the vaccinated) or employers (who are in
the age of mandatory drug testing have obvious motives). Though mass,
forced vaccinations may be unlikely, a scenario in which individuals feel
pressured to get the vaccine is no less chilling in it implications.

Civil libertarians on both the left and right ends of the political
spectrum aren't the only ones concerned over universal vaccination. Critics
of childhood vaccinations - alternative medicine advocates, concerned
parents - are growing in number. The National Vaccine Information Center
promotes parental awareness about vaccination risks and the right to refuse
shots. Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the center, is outraged by the idea
of antidrug vaccines. "To add a vaccine to the mix that doesn't fit into
early-childhoold diseases seems amazing," she says. "That we can get a
vaccine to solve every social problem is short-term thinking."

This article originally appeared in the Village Voice.