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From: Cactus Jammies on 3 Jan 2008 13:05
"Waterspider" <nospam(a)all.com> wrote in message
news:13np6ilqsdp65a2(a)corp.supernews.com...
> B.C. to supply addicts with crack-pipe mouthpieces
> By Kate Webb, The Province
> Published: Wednesday, January 02, 2008
> Crack-pipe mouthpieces are soon to join syringes, alcohol swabs and water
> vials on the list of free supplies distributed by the B.C. government to
> drug users.
.............................. ws ....................

Personally, I think the positive aspects of this program far outweigh the
punitive aspects of a negative spin. No new addicts would be created. As
your article stated: Based on nationwide figures from the Canadian Institute
for Health Research, Kendall estimated the bill for British Columbians with
hepatitis C falls between $71 million and $143 million each year. In
contrast, he estimated each disposable piece of tubing costs fractions of a
penny.

and for a bit more news from Canada:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080102.cocaine03/BNStory/National/home

- Cactus Jammies

Scientists testing vaccine for cocaine users
LISA PRIEST

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

January 2, 2008 at 11:56 PM EST

Nothing says drug addiction more than a needle and syringe. But that's
exactly what a team of U.S. researchers believes can help cocaine users kick
their menacing habit. Two Baylor College of Medicine scientists based in
Houston have developed a cocaine vaccine that creates antibodies that bind
to the drug and prevent it from travelling from the bloodstream to the
brain. Unable to penetrate the brain, the drug can produce no high.

If the vaccine makes it through regulatory hurdles, it would be the first
medication approved to treat cocaine addiction.

"It certainly is a way of combining immunology that had not been used
before," Tom Kosten, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Baylor,
said in a telephone interview yesterday. "We had always thought of altering
the brain as a way to prevent drug abuse. This way, the drug never gets into
the brain to begin with."

Drug addiction treatment has largely been psychiatric counselling and
12-step programs. Dr. Kosten said that won't go away - any approved vaccine
would be complementary to behavioural therapy.

"If it's approved in the U.S., then getting approval in Canada won't be that
difficult," he said, adding that, if all goes well, a cocaine vaccine could
be available in the United States in four years.

About 50 pharmaceutical options have previously been explored for cocaine
addiction.

Dr. Kosten, who has been assisted in his decade-long research by his spouse,
Therese Kosten, also a psychologist and neuroscientist at Baylor, asked the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration last month to allow a Phase 3 clinical
trial to begin this spring, involving 300 patients at six U.S. sites. Other
trials are expected in Spain and Italy.

"Because there are no treatments for cocaine addiction, it's been one of
their fast-tracked programs at the FDA," Dr. Kosten said. He is also at work
on vaccines for heroin, nicotine and methamphetamine.

Yesterday, Evan Wood, co-principal investigator of the supervised injection
facility evaluation in Vancouver, called the cocaine vaccine "new and
provocative."

"From a societal perspective, cocaine is one of the drugs that continue to
be overlooked as one of the big problem drugs in our society," said Dr.
Wood, a physician epidemiologist at the British Columbia Centre for
Excellence in HIV/AIDS.

"Crack cocaine is what is driving many of the social problems and public
order problems and crime problems, particularly in the Downtown Eastside [of
Vancouver]."

Dr. Wood said the "explosive HIV outbreak" in Vancouver's east side is
largely attributed to heroin users switching to cocaine, which leads to
"more frequent injections, more chaotic behaviour and more syringe sharing."

Learning about the immune system is opening all sorts of "avenues and
possibilities," said Dr. Wood. "But whether this is a useful tool remains to
be seen."

Certainly, the science is intriguing.

Since cocaine molecules are so small, the immune system does not recognize
them and cannot make antibodies to attack them.

To fix that problem, Dr. Kosten attached inactivated cocaine to the outside
of inactivated cholera proteins.

The immune system made harmless antibodies to the combination, but also
recognized the drug when it was ingested. The antibodies bound to the
cocaine, preventing it from reaching the brain, where the addictive highs
are generated.

In Canada, there are no hard figures on how many are currently addicted to
cocaine. Studies such as the Canadian Addiction Survey, published in 2004,
found that more than 14 per cent of males, and 10.6 per cent of the total
population, reported having tried cocaine.

Gerald Sidel, director of Addington Addiction Treatment Centre in Montreal,
said yesterday that everybody is looking for the "magic bullet" to treat
addictions.

He compared using modified cocaine to treat cocaine addicts to allowing
alcoholics to engage in controlled drinking.

"Certainly if there is a way of helping people, I am not adverse to that,"
Mr. Sidel said in a telephone interview yesterday. "But don't treat drug
addicts with drugs."



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