UK - Is the future of drugs safe and non-addictive?

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edgarshade

Bluelighter
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Guardian

Posted by
David Nutt
Sunday 10 June 2012 20.00 BST

With reader comments

In years to come alcohol may be replaced with happier alternatives and we could all be immunised against developing harmful habits.

The next 20 years hold great opportunities for drugs research. We could see the development of pharmacological substitutes, agents to block the effects of drugs and help people break addictions, and drug-based aids in psychological treatments. There will be risks, and difficult legal and ethical issues that will need to be addressed.

A topic that will almost certainly prove controversial in the next 20 years is the use of vaccines to make drugs ineffective. Already, people coming to hospital having overdosed on cocaine are given antibodies that mop up the drug in the blood. This is a short-term treatment, lasting a few hours, but in theory it should be possible to vaccinate someone against a drug, so that when a person takes it the immune system is turned on, stopping the drug from getting to the brain.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/shortcuts/2012/jun/10/the-future-of-drugs-safe?newsfeed=true
 
Sometimes I tell myself that we as a society are far too morally progressed to even consider forced vaccination as a tool against drug use, but occasionally articles like this shake my resolve and I actually start to wonder. He didn't advocate for forced vaccination, but he certainly didn't seem to address it as a very real possible consequence of the adoption of such techniques, it's rather concerning that he didn't even stop to consider it. Storing readily available genetic information in a chip under the skin is also a bit too 'Gattica' for me, I think Mr Nutt means well, but he needs to stop and consider the very real dangers to going down these paths as a society.

The concept of replacing alcohol with anything close to a benzodiazepine is ludicrous as well. I'm all for modifying chemicals to create safer versions, but he's obviously never seen something in the depths of a 20mg clonazepam blackout if he's referring to benzos when describing his ideal alcohol replacement. Any lack of direct chemical damage is well and truly canceled out by the horrendous risk someone in that situation poses to themselves and others.

On the other hand, we already have a drug that produces euphoria, relaxation and comfort with absolutely no physical damage and an easy antidote, while also having the fringe benefit of not inducing wild or aggressive behavior, unfortunately opiates are one of the most maligned classes of drugs in today's society.

(on a side note, I think Firefox's spellcheck was written by an errant time traveler from the 1940's, it keeps trying to replace 'benzodiazepine' with 'benzedrine' :p )
 
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Future of drugs is clearly wireheading. Chemicals are so 20th century, let's progress to the next stage. Of course, the first people to let a back-street brain surgeon wire them up will be brave indeed...
 
Vader said:
Future of drugs is clearly wireheading. Chemicals are so 20th century, let's progress to the next stage. Of course, the first people to let a back-street brain surgeon wire them up will be brave indeed...
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Hmmm, anyone able to point me to a brain surgeon happy to run a wire into my mu-opioid receptors? :p

Seriously though, I don't see wires into the brain replacing chemicals for ease or accessibility anytime soon, although their medical application shows a lot of promise.
 
Hmmm, anyone able to point me to a brain surgeon happy to run a wire into my mu-opioid receptors?
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Course mate, I do you real nice price, I got a surgical textbook from 1958 and steady hands (after I've had my first Scotch of the day, that is). What's the worst that could happen?
 
If I were ruler of this earth we would all be living the in the best years of mankind. :]
 
Crankinit said:
Hmmm, anyone able to point me to a brain surgeon happy to run a wire into my mu-opioid receptors? :p

Seriously though, I don't see wires into the brain replacing chemicals for ease or accessibility anytime soon, although their medical application shows a lot of promise.
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It could be possible to stimulate the nucleus accumbens (pleasure center of the brain) noninvasively with external magnetic fields, but the method is not in use yet.

http://mason.gmu.edu/~kjamiso2/papers/Roth2002_H-Coil_paper.pdf
Noninvasive magnetic stimulation of the human central nervous system has been used in research and the clinic for several years. However, the coils used previously stimulated mainly the cortical brain regions but could not stimulate deeper brain regions directly. The purpose of the current study was to develop a coil to stimulate deep brain regions. Stimulation of the nucleus accumbens and the nerve fibers connecting the prefrontal cortex with the nucleus accumbens was one major target of the authors’ coil design. Numeric simulations of the electrical field induced by several types of coils were performed and accordingly an optimized coil for deep brain stimulation was designed. The electrical field induced by the new coil design was
measured in a phantom brain and compared with the double-cone coil. The numeric simulations show that the electrical fields induced by various types of coils are always greater in cortical regions (closer to the coil placement); however, the decrease in electrical field within the brain (as a function of the distance from the coil) is markedly slower for the new coil design. The phantom brain measurements basically confirmed the numeric simulations. The suggested coil is likely to have the ability of deep brain stimulation without the need to increase the intensity to levels that stimulate cortical regions to a much higher extent and possibly cause undesirable side effects.
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replacing ethanol in "alcoholic" drinks with a safer alternative, such as a benzodiazepine, producing a moderate buzz with no increase in effects at higher doses
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Haha because having everyone blacked out on valium is a great idea, I thought this guy knew his stuff.
 
20max10 said:
Haha because having everyone blacked out on valium is a great idea, I thought this guy knew his stuff.
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He has actually come up with something to simulate booze in pill form, it even has a sober up pill so at the end of the night you can get in your car and drive home. But he has said the research will never be published also the substance would get banned if it was released.
 
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