Nicotine vaccine in early trials what do folks think?
As a once (and, god help me, probably future) smoker, I am very excited by this. If there were a shot that I could take that would basically make there be no point to smoking, I might actually be free.
And hell, if this works like a vaccine, we could wipe out smoking the way that we did Polio!
All right, so now the cigarette companies will have to start lacing their product with heroin (and not just in the filter, either) in order to keep their customers addicted…
But I don’t think it’ll get rid of smoking. I know a lot of people who, despite being addicted, wouldn’t quit even if they wanted to (they basically smoke just to be contrary).
…Or, rather, they wouldn’t quit even if they weren’t addicted…
Hmmm. This seems great for people who have already quit and at risk of resuming smoking, but it doesn’t seem anymore likely to make someone quit than administering Narcan to a heroin addict.
Still, it has the potential to help people who’ve already quit stay quit and is worth pursuing for that reason alone.
It sounds like it could also help people who are thinking of taking up smoking from getting hooked in the first place.
From the article quoted in the OP:
But as everyone who’s ever tried to quit smoking knows, the real problem is the psychological addiction, and this drug won’t do anything for that.
Personally I think they’d be better off developing some kind of equivalent to Antabuse. If I were to get violently ill every time I smoked a cigarette it would make me quit pretty quickly.
Sorry, ruadh, it’s a physical addiction. One would be hard pressed to describe the difference, subjectively speaking. Heroin, cocaine and nicotine affect the same part of the brain. Believe it was determined a few years back that nicotine is several times as addictive as heroin.
Start here->http://whyfiles.org/024nicotine/
“It’s a physical addiction” “It’s a psychological addiction”
You’re both right! It’s two addictions in one! Just like cocaine, heroin, and alcohol. Both components must be dealt with.
And reams of literature have been written about the difference between physical and psychological addiction. Right now I’m too lazy to track them down.
Um, yeah, I think I know a bit about cigarette addiction. It is of course a physical addiction as well as a psychological addiction - but the psychological part remains long after the physical cravings have gone away (for most ex-smokers, anyway). Which is why so many people backslide weeks, months or even years after quitting, and which is why this vaccine will be of limited effectiveness.
I quit smoking two months ago, the physical part of the addiction is gone but by god, the psychological part is alive and well! I STILL get cravings, and hope that vaccine makes it to market, not because it would help me physically, but just in case I DO relapse, there’s less chance I’d become full-blown addicted again.
This sounds like the perfect excuse for an exsmoker to go back. I wouldn’t be surprised if this research is somehow covertly funded by the tobacco industry itself. As an ex-smoker and a smoking cessation facilitator, I can assure you that if you tell most any quit smoker that they can light up and take a vaccine to block nicotine uptake, they’ll do both. I offer the above posts as my evidence.
why would the vaccine be less effective?
If it blocks nicotine from getting to the brain that is good right?
So, you have a crappy day and think “Jeebus I need a smoke” yet you smoke and no nicotine hits the brain. Cigarettes no longer give you the percieved “comfort” they once did.
Of course this might cause the monkey on your back to chatter till you get a drink to calm those nerves 
The comfort smokers get from their cigarette is not perceived, it is very real. And inhaling over 400 carcinogens is never a good thing.
Think about it. You would first have to get the vaccine before you smoked. That means you would have to think ahead, make plans to smoke. How could that possibly be of any benefit to anyone but a share holder?
I smell a rat.
E72521: Give it to your kids with the rest of the immunizations
ruadh wrote:
Just be sure not to listen to Beethoven’s Ninth symphony while you’re undergoing the treatment. You don’t want to be driven to jump out of a second-story window by a ruthless downstairs neighbor with big speakers. 
http://www.xenova.co.uk/dc_ta_nic.html
After reading the above, I am still not convinced that this drug would benefit a quit smoker contemplating smoking again. It will be years before we know for sure.
This drug, if it works, and that is a very big if, would do nothing to relieve nicotine withdrawl. And it would require a minimum of a series of shots before it would begin to work. And it is unknown how often you’ll need “boosters”. And I guarentee the cost will be prohibitive to most smokers, who tend to lean towards the lower end of the socio-economic food chain.
The urge to smoke passes whether a quitter smokes or not. And nothing in the research suggests that these antibodies would block all of the nicotine reaching the brain.
My message to quit smokers: Don’t be fooled into thinking you have an excuse to go back to smoking. If this turns out to be correct, great! In the meantime, stay on course.
coffeecat: So far the 60 test subjects are adults. We’re probably decades away from feeding this to our children.
In the current issue (July 2002) of Discover magazine, there is a short article* about nicotine being developed as a treatment for various disorders/diseases such as ADD, tourette’s, alzheimers, schizophrenia and depression because of its effect on the brain.
I wonder if taking this vaccine would preclude using nicotine later on as a treatment for one of the above problems?
*New Remedies from old poisions by Susan Freinkel - full text not available online