Who Can Really Say?: Will That be One Shot or Two?

What if someone who would like to quit smoking cigarettes or crack but finds it hard to do so could get an injection that would keep the molecules of the drug in question from getting from his bloodstream to his brain? If he took the drug, he would get little or no psychological effect from it; the behavior, like all unrewarded behaviors, would extinguish fairly quicly.

That from Mark Kleiman, who goes on to say why calling this a vaccine is problematic even though that's in fact what it acts like. He notes though that the effect of an injection would only last 3 months.

But per Kleiman, an Independent article suggests otherwise:

Under the plans, doctors would immunise children at risk of becoming smokers or drug users with an injection. The scheme could operate in a similar way to the current nationwide measles, mumps and rubella vaccination programme.

Childhood immunisation would provide adults with protection from the euphoria that is experienced by users, making drugs such as heroin and cocaine pointless to take. Such vaccinations are being developed by pharmaceutical companies and are due to hit the market within two years.

Kleinman says it's a stupid idea because a shot will only last three months, and for all I know (and hope!) he's right. But what if it would last a lifetime, or years and years anyway? Consider the mindset, for a moment, of those who would mandate that everyone have that shot.

Ok. You can stop now. Creepy, wasn't it?

Comments

The people that would mandate that all kids have that shot would be conservatives like our current Attorney General, wouldn't they? Conservatives, at least the ones I'm talking about, are always talking about freedom, but its usually only economic freedom. They very often don't come down on the side of freedom when we are talking personal liberties, do they? Maybe on some things (like smoking in restaurants for example-- since that interferes with the big tobacco companies economic freedom to make money). But these are the anti-drug types that also want to control what goes into your DVD player and what you read and that sort of thing. You know, the Ed Meeses and the John Ashcrofts of the world. Pete-- good to see you taking the libertarian side on this and not the conservative one.

Posted by: Glenn | July 30, 2004 6:01 PM

You've got this so half wrong it isn't even funny. Sure, it'd be the Ashcrofter's in the US who'd support this. But the story came from Britain, and in that context the bad guy is the left. It isn't about whether the left or the right is correct on the issues and that one can be trusted while the other can't. No, the point is that no government should hold that power at all.

For example, check this out for a little bit of Britain's left: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/11/nslug11.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/11/ixhome.html

Posted by: Peter | July 30, 2004 6:29 PM