Opening Pandora's Box:
Anti-Drug Vaccines Gather Momentum
by Cletus Nelson
for DrugWar.com
Nov. 16, 2004
Back in 2002, DrugWar.com addressed a disturbing
new strategy in the war on drugs: The development of anti-drug
"vaccines" capable of permanently blunting the effects
of mind-altering substances. The article ("Headshrinking
the American Addict"), discussed how the National
Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in partnership with various
corporate and public entities was spending millions developing
this supposed "cure" for the "disease" of
addiction. The sheer scope of this neuro-political endeavor, which
sounds like something out of a futuristic science fiction thriller,
generated more than a few incredulous responses from skeptical
readers. Yet some two years later, this far flung experiment in
social control is gaining traction among prohibitionists.
SOUNDING THE ALARM
Over the past year, the anti-drug agents,
or "pharmacotherapy" drugs, have drawn the attention
of the Northern California-based Center
for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics (CCLE). This spring, the
Center distilled their research into a compelling 52-page report
that makes for some truly disturbing reading. Titled Threats to
Cognitive Liberty: Pharmacotherapy and the Future of the Drug
War," the well researched position paper comes to the unsettling
conclusion that within the next decade this once speculative venture
is destined to become a reality. Indeed, the report predicts that
the medically-based approach to countering drug abuse will "tremendously
impact" the strategic focus of both American and International
drug control strategies. Moreover, the CCLE warn that this ominous
development will engender a "striking expansion of the state's
policing mechanism on at least two fronts: 1) from external policing
to internal policing; and 2) from restraining a person's body
and behavior, to directly restraining a person's thoughts and
thought processes." (p. 41)
These aren't the ruminations of a crew of
stoners swapping conspiracy theories over bong hits in the back
of a van, but the opinion of a nationally recognized organization
of experts in such diverse fields as science, law, ethics, and
medicine. While it is hoped that the Center's learned observations
will engender greater public debate about the vaccines, this authoritative
document is also invaluable as it explores the underlying motivations
behind this backdoor attempt by government officials to claim
ownership to our minds.
NEW WEAPONS, SAME WAR
The CCLE identify three types of vaccines
currently in development; Receptor
Blockers, Molecule
Binders, and Metabolism Modifiers. Most Americans are familiar
with the latter group as they include anti-drinking medications
such as the highly popular Antabuse
which is often prescribed for alcoholism. The goal of these compounds
is merely to induce intense discomfort when an individual imbibes
a particular substance in order to discourage its further use.
Anyone who has viewed Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange is
familiar with this form of negative conditioning. However, Receptor
Blockers are far more drastic as the compounds directly enter
the bloodstream to short circuit the addictive process by using
"antagonists" and other agents to permanently neutralize
and/or inhibit the ability of the brain's receptor sites to process
psychoactive drugs. Similarly, Molecule Binders are designed to
bind like antibodies to the molecules of illegal substances rendering
them incapable of penetrating the blood-brain barrier.
The study places great emphasis on the fact
that pharmacotherapy medications have the potential to significantly
alter both how the drug war is perceived and how prohibition efforts
will be conducted in the near future. In essence, the new approach
"expands the battlefield from the Colombian coca farms and
Middle-Eastern poppy fields to a new terrain directly inside the
bodies and brains of drug users." (p.6) [emphasis in the
original]
The reason for this dramatic shift in strategy
isn't difficult to fathom: The drug war is a colossal failure.
Citing recent statistics from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMSHA), the Center notes that an estimated
19 million Americans (age 12 and above) ingest some type of illegal
drug each month. Thus, the federal government, which has long
relied on punitive measures ranging from imprisonment to asset
forfeiture in order to reduce demand for illicit drugs, is seeking
to retake the offensive in this losing war by reprogramming the
brains of alleged substance abusers.
CREATING AN EPIDEMIC
Another social factor driving the vaccine
initiative is the widespread belief among government anti-drug
strategists and addiction medicine specialists that any form of
drug use is indicative of a medically recognized "disease."
Obviously this clinical approach is now being reflected in official
policy. Over the past decade, the Center reports, US government
officials have attempted to "re-engineer its drug prohibition
metaphor, recasting drug users not so much as 'the enemy,' but
rather as victims" in need of preemptive intervention. (p.
18)
While this sounds like a welcome development
to those who oppose our current "jail 'em first" policy,
attempts to reconfigure the war on drugs as a benign effort to
help people help themselves opens the door to the coercive use
of this alleged "silver bullet" cure. "If the government
can already hunt down and confine users of illegal drugs,"
the report's authors remark, "what would prohibit the government
from the using the same police power 'help Americans make the
right decisions' by forcing drug users to take the new pharmacotherapy
drugs?" (p. 19)
One must also address the fact that the entire
notion that addiction and/or myriad forms of self harming behavior
constitute an organic "disease" is far from a scientific
certainty. Although this remains an article of faith within the
12 Step Recovery Group Movement (RGM), many have begun to openly
question the widely popular "disease model." As Michael
Lemanski remarks in his fascinating History of Addiction and Recovery
in the United States (See Sharp Press, 2001), "The Disease
Concept of addiction as currently known in the US can be traced
back to one survey which was concluded by [Elvin] Jellinek in
collaboration with AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] in its early days
in 1945, and which was distributed through the AA organ, The Grapevine."
Only 98 individuals responded to the questionnaire,
but Jellinek would allow this sketchy data to lay the groundwork
for his widely read Disease Model of Alcoholism (1960, Alcohol
Researech Documentation). Since that time, his disease doctrine
has been applied to everything from compulsive shopping to cocaine
addiction. As Lemanski observes, "This fundamental flaw within
the entire American chemical dependency field---with essentially
the entire edifice resting upon this one exceedingly weak reed---has
led to neglect, misdiagnosis, and improper treatment of both addicted
and non-addicted problem alcohol abusers and problem drinkers."
This faulty conceptual metaphor which denies
free will and implies that vast segments of the population are
biologically incapable of resisting the temptations of various
"cunning" and "baffling" substances provides
intellectual cover for advocates of coercive therapeutic interventions
such as pharmacotherapy. While vaccine supporters will likely
argue that the vaccines will be administered on a voluntary basis
in accordance with the medical principle of informed consent,
evidence indicates that the government has a shoddy track record
when it involves the rights of suspected drug abusers.
"It seems likely that the percentage
of NA [Narcotics Anonymous] members coerced into attendance is
even higher than that of AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] members coerced
into attendance because of the illegality of many recreational
drugs in this country," observes author Chaz Bufe in his
illuminating volume Resisting Twelve Step Coercion (See Sharp,
2000). To substantiate this argument, Bufe cites NA studies which
show that nearly half of all individuals attending the popular
self-help group were referred by a "treatment facility or
while incarcerated." An additional 24% were urged to attend
by "community professionals," an Orwellian catch-all
phrase which includes "doctors, attorneys, clergy, judges."
Considering many individuals must attend NA or face a stretch
in jail, the loss of one's job, expulsion from school, their membership
in NA is far from voluntary. .
FREE MARKETS, CLOSED MINDS
The Center speculates that the many pharmaceutical
companies working in concert with the government to develop the
vaccines will apply significant pressure to ensure that the medications
are widely used. Indeed, an ominous 1997 study
commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
to discuss "market barriers" to the research and development
of pharmacotherapy drugs makes this very argument. The seven-year-old
document urges "government funding" of the vaccines,
an "expansion and enhancement" of the nation's treatment-industrial-complex,
and stresses the importance of a "guaranteed market"
for the medications once they have been developed.
The CCLE report suggests that individuals
serving time for narcotics, those on parole for drug offenses,
and those receiving some form of government assistance will likely
be targeted to ensure that the medications will provide this lucrative
market. Moreover, considering the fact that drugs continue to
permeate our prisons, the nation's entire prison population could
end up being inoculated as a preventative measure. The report
quotes an illuminating Wall Street Reporter interview with Jane
Greetham, the CEO of a pharmaceutical firm known as DrugAbuse
Sciences (DAS) which is currently developing vaccines for alcohol
dependence and heroin addiction. Greetham sees vast profits to
be made in this allegedly humanitarian endeavor:
"...[O]ur company reminds me of Eli
Lilly and Prozac in the depression field. In 1984, when I wrote
up Prozac for the first time on Wall Street, there was a $200
million market for depression. The market today is worth $10 billion...Our
goal is to develop that addiction market and bring addiction out
of the closet..." (p. 22)
Researchers for the CCLE astutely observe
that former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey currently sits on the DAS
Board of Directors and is in a unique position to lobby Congress
to provide greater funding in order to expand this "new market."
This is not to say the CCLE doesn't endorse these new compounds
for those who wish to voluntarily quit or reduce drug use. However,
they openly question the motives of those, like Greetham, who
support these futuristic treatments. "The CCLE is not unaware,
however, that the development of pharmacotherapy drugs---like
drug prohibition itself---is driven more by politics and profits
than by genuine public health concerns," assert the report's
authors. (p. 14)
To cite but one example, the CCLE point out
current efforts by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
in partnership with the Paris-based Sanofi-Synthelabo, to create
a medication known as SR141716
which is designed to deter the effects of marijuana. In light
of the fact that studies show that marijuana is less
harmful than alcohol or tobacco, is far
from addictive, and has many medicinal
benefits, the report speculates that SR141716 is a "drug
born almost entirely from the fact that the alleged harm associated
with marijuana use is political in nature rather than medical."
(p. 14)
A MODEST PROPOSAL
Whether or not children will be required
to be inoculated against the "disease" of cocaine, heroin,
or marijuana addiction has yet to be resolved. However, the CCLE
analysis cites several Supreme Court cases which have limited
the rights of children attending public school. Thus, the organization
is "concerned that government rhetoric equating the use of
illegal drugs with infectious disease, combined with the already
watered-down constitutional rights of children attending public
school, may set the stage for requiring the use of various pharmacotherapy
'vaccines' as a precondition to attending public school or to
participating in sports or other extracurricular activities."
(p. 25)
However, for some this may not go far enough.
In the United Kingdom (UK), which has long been lauded by reform
groups for its forward thinking policy toward treatment, medical
cannabis, and the recent decriminalization
of the controversial herb, there is already talk of injecting
infants in the hopes that the next generation of British citizens
will have the benefit of living in a pharmacotherapy-induced cocoon
that will shield their minds from the influence of mind-expanding
drugs.
"People could be vaccinated against
drugs at birth as you are against measles," David Nutt informs
the UK Indpendent in a July article.
As Director of Pharmacology at the University of Bristol and an
influential member of Britain's National Council on the Misuse
of Drugs, the aptly named Professor is enthusiastically taking
up the cudgel of preemptive vaccination. Nutt and a panel of scientists
selected by the Blair government will be issuing recommendations
to government health officials this coming March as part of the
Brain Science, Addictions and Drugs Project;. The Independent
reports that a "radical" immunization scheme aimed at
children will be one of the leading proposals submitted by the
committee.
While the mere thought of exposing children
to an experimental vaccine that could permanently alter the brain
should be cause for concern, the new pharmaceuticals are already
receiving outspoken (albeit qualified) support from politicians.
"This could have a huge impact on society in terms of preventing
damage to others and dealing with addicts," Labour MP David
Hinchliffe informs the British press. However, Hinchliffe also
warns that the "ethical perspective does need to be looked
at closely."
THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE
One can only hope that this dubious policy
will be closely examined from the aforementioned "ethical
perspective." Unfortunately, the enthusiasm this questionable
panacea is eliciting in both corporate and government circles
may soon outpace efforts to address the many constitutional safeguards
that may be trampled in the process of implementing a widespread
vaccination program. While the plight of addicts is certainly
an onerous problem, does it merit relinquishing the very human
right to make informed choices about how we live our lives?
"For the most part, people manage to
use drugs without disrupting their lives; they find ways to balance
this particular pressure with other things they value." observes
Jacob Sullum, author of Saying
Yes: In Defense of Drug Use (Tarcher/Putnam, 2003) in a recent
issue of Seed
magazine. Indeed, Sullum believes these "are important skills
to learn, since almost any pleasure can be taken to excess and
it's highly unlikely that NIDA-funded research will find a vaccine
for them all."
This view is echoed by Dr.
Stanton Peele, the controversial author of the heretical Diseasing
of America (Jossey-Bass, 1999). An outspoken critic of NIDA's
nascent immunization scheme, Peele believes addiction researchers
should reject the simplistic belief that immunization will conquer
drug abuse and place a greater emphasis on the underlying motivations
behind this type of behavior. "In the end, it is not exposure
to this substance or that, prescribed medicine or street-drug
that causes addiction," he observes in a recent essay. "It
is failure to engage in the world, to believe in one's competence
and ultimate chance for success, and to care enough for people,
things, and oneself to eschew self-destructive behavior."
We can only hope these voices will be heard
in the coming debate over the preemptive vaccines. Hopeful reformers
frequently speak of the drug war's impending demise. Perhaps we
should be careful of what we wish for. The advent of pharmacotherapy
could bring an end to the militarized model that has dominated
anti-narcotic efforts for the past quarter century but the terms
of this dubious armstice would be very high indeed. In its concluding
paragraph, the CCLE warn that we face nothing less than "governmental
tyranny of our thought processes" should the mailed fist
of "compassionate coercion" be enacted as public policy.
Before we relinquish a portion of our minds in a deranged rush
to eliminate a non-existent disease, it is imperative that we
proceed cautiously. Man has imbibed psychoactive substances for
thousands of years for a variety of reasons and it would be nothing
less than foolhardy to relegate this integral part of the human
experience to the historical dustbin based on the questionable
opinions of agenda-driven drug war zealots.
###
The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics
(CCLE) Report can be downloaded at the organization's web page---http://www.cognitiveliberty.org
