Monday 4 July 2011

The pleasure vaccine

From The Australian:

US scientists believe they are close to developing a vaccine for nicotine addiction that could stub out smoking for good.

They are testing a synthetic molecule that destroys tobacco's "feel-good" effect by stimulating white blood cells to smother nicotine when it reaches the bloodstream. This prevents nicotine from creating an artificial high in the brain.

Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in California hope to try out the injection on humans within three years. If it works, the principle could be adapted to vaccinate children against addiction to drugs, including cocaine and heroin.

Aldous Huxley would have been proud to come up with such an idea (satirically, of course). Perhaps this is the answer to the age-old problem of people enjoying themselves in ways that displeases the government. This is more than a cessation device; it will make it pharmacologically impossible to derive pleasure from stimulants and narcotics. Kind of brings a new meaning to the word 'kill-joy', doesn't it?

It's interesting that the 'vaccine' is not even being pitched as an aid to quitting for people who want to do so. Instead, it is explicitly cited as a means "to vaccinate children" who, by definition, cannot consent. One of the researchers mentions that this would raise "profound moral questions". No kidding. But prohibition also raises profound moral questions and yet that has not stopped an Icelandic politician raising a private member's bill to do just that...

Iceland is considering banning the sale of cigarettes and making them a prescription-only product.

And yes, that is prohibition. Doctors were able to prescribe drink in 1920s America and can still prescribe hard drugs today.

To think that it all started with an assurance that they only wanted to warn smokers of the hazards of smoking and have non-smoking sections in restaurants.

As Johnny Rotten once said, do you ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

9 comments:

Woodsy42 said...

I'm surprised they want to bother to make it for just tobacco, just a generic anti pleasure vaccine would fit their purpose better.

Anonymous said...

These people are truly vile bastards.

Peter Soakell, Bournemouth. England

Magnetic said...

The first demand for a smoking ban was in the late-1980s concerning short-haul flights in the USA of less than 2 hours. At the time, the antismokers (e.g., Banzhaf) were asked if this was a “slippery slope” – where would it end? They ridiculed anyone suggesting such because this ban was ALL that they were after.
Then they ONLY wanted smoking bans on all flights.
Then the antismokers ONLY wanted nonsmoking sections in restaurants, bars, etc., and ensuring that that was ALL they wanted.
Then the antismokers ONLY wanted complete bans indoors. That was all they wanted. At the time, no-one was complaining about having to “endure” wisps of smoke outdoors.

Having bulldozed their way into indoor bans, the antismokers then went to work on the outdoors.
Then they ONLY wanted bans within 10 feet of entrance ways.
Then they ONLY wanted bans within 20 feet of entrance ways.
Then they ONLY wanted bans in entire outdoor dining areas.
Then they ONLY wanted bans for entire university campuses and parks and beaches.
Then they ONLY wanted bans for apartment balconies.
Then they ONLY wanted bans for entire apartment (including indoor) complexes.

On top of all of this, there are now instances, particularly in the USA, where smokers are denied employment, denied housing, denied medical treatment. In Bhutan (also signed up to the WHO FCTC) in only the last months a monk was jailed for three years for failing to pay duty on less than a few dollars of chewable tobacco.

Magnetic said...

2.

At each point there was a crazed insistence that there was no more to come while they were actually planning the next ban and the brainwashing required to push it. There has been incessant lying and deception. Many medically-aligned groups have been committed to antismoking – their smokefree “utopia” – since the 1960s. All of it is working to a tobacco-extermination plan run by the WHO. Most countries have signed up to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which requires that particular bans be put in place within a particular time frame and that the number of smokers be reduced. Government health bureaucracies around the world have hog-tied their nations to the WHO.

I’m sure we can see a pattern here. The concocted SHS “danger” concerned a minute statistical risk of questionable causal basis for lifelong exposure to SHS from spousal smoking. Around 99.9+% of those exposed to SHS over a lifetime have NO elevated statistical risk of disease. Yet with the propaganda promoting the idea that SHS is bio-weapon-like, unlike anything else on earth, we now have many delicate and dainty nonsmokers “running the gauntlet” of smokers at entranceways, hand cupped over mouth, terrified that they might inhale a whiff. This is the promotion of mental dysfunction (e.g., anxiety reactions, hypochondria, somatization). And the irrationally terrified then demand “protection”. It is fully to be expected as a result of incessant inflammatory propaganda. And this is typically what happens when medicos go on their social-engineering, deranged ideological crusades.

This has all happened in just 20 years. If it was mentioned 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, that smokers would be denied employment and housing and smoking bans in parks, it would have been laughed at as “crazed thinking”. Yet here we are. It’s all happened before and it has all been intentional, planned decades ago. We just don’t learn or we’re going to have to learn the very hard way because it has to do with far, far more than just smoking.

Magnetic said...

This is a bit rich. In fact, it’s a drivel-fest. The great feat here is how numerous pieces of propaganda are crammed into this one article; they even manage to include “child/children” 12 times (a new record?).

“PETROL stations across Cumbria are supporting health bosses to reduce the number of parents who choose to smoke in their cars.”

That’s right! Petrol stations, those glowing pillars of health promotion (giggle), are supporting this “initiative”.

Posters have been sent to every petrol station in the county reminding parents that smoking in cars with the window down is still harmful to other people in the car’s health, especially children, as part of a second hand smoke campaign.

This summer Cumbria Tobacco Alliance, which brings together public bodies from across Cumbria, such as Cumbria County Council and NHS Cumbria, is running the second hand smoke campaign alongside Smokefree North West. The aim of the campaign is to remind people and ask parents in particular to consider not smoking whilst they drive in order to reduce their child’s chance of getting ill after breathing in their smoke.


People should not smoke in cars that contain other passengers, particularly The Children®. But wait, we can go one further. People should really not smoke in cars at all (thirdhand-piffle “danger”):

Even if a child isn’t present every time they drive, tobacco smoke can linger on furniture and clothes and can still cause harm.

"Through effective partnership working we have made a lot of progress protecting children in Cumbria by reducing exposure to second hand smoke and restricting access to tobacco. Unfortunately some children are still exposed to second hand smoke in cars and they cannot escape the harmful fumes. We urge parents and other adults to consider the health impacts for children and make your car smokefree."

http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/9119606.Petrol_stations_support_second_hand_smoke_campaign/

Leg-iron said...

It's not possible to activate white blood cells against nicotine. It's far too small a molecule.

If it were done, it would also activate those same cells against anything closely related, such as vitamin B3 and the results of that would be ...interesting.

Like Champix, this can only really work by disabling the receptors for nicotine, which are not nicotine-specific but are among the so-called 'pleasure receptors'. With no ability to feel pleasure, it's no surprise to find people killing themselves and others.

(Actually, that also neatly explains why those who hate smoking are such miserable gits. They have no pleasure receptors.)

But that's all okay as long as the smokophobes' noses can breathe in clean diesel fumes, untainted by a bit of burning leaf. They won't even mind the strange effects this will have on their children. They might be mad and deformed but at least they don't smoke.

As for prescription tobacco - bring it on. Prescriptions are free in Scotland. Just call me 'hopeless addict' all you want if it means free baccy forever.

Anonymous said...

Ever seen the film "Equilibrium"?

I think we're getting closer every day.

Anonymous said...

Ever seen the film "V for Vendetta?"

Vocal EK said...

"This prevents nicotine from creating an artificial high in the brain." Talk about feeling cheated, I've never experienced this so-called "high". The best way I can describe what I do feel is that the cobwebs are being swept out of my brain so that I can concentrate, remember, and think straight. Apparently there are folks who prefer that I go about my business making tons of mistakes.

Which brings me to the second reason why I am commenting. Nicotine has proven helpful for those with attention deficit disorder, depression that is unresponsive to Rx antidressant medications, and several other problems that are caused by imbalances in neurotransmitters. But apparently these helpful effects would be blocked by the vaccine. So, stay confused kids, and welcome to the wonderful world of anhedonia.