FriendBurst Blog

Back in January, this little headline caught my attention: Vaccine for Cocaine Addiction Discovered.  Wow!  Now there’s something I’d never heard of before.  I read the story and realized that like frequently happens with announcements from the scientific community, it was being sensationalized by the media a bit.  Yes, technically, what the researchers were announcing is a vaccine, in that it is a “preparation of a weakened or killed pathogen, such as a bacterium or virus, or of a portion of the pathogen’s structure, that stimulates immune cells to recognize and attack it, especially through antibody production (Science Dictionary)”, but addiction is a complex biological, social, psychological and spiritual condition.  It’s not an ordinary disease.  This “vaccine“ doesn‘t do anything for the latter three dimensions of the condition.  Whereas curing it with a pill is a lofty goal and it certainly makes for an attention-getting announcement for your research, what they’ve really done is found a promising way to block the effects of cocaine intoxication; what that does for addiction is not so clear.

That said, what they’ve done is a pretty interesting bit of biomedical science that could have lots of useful future applications. Essentially, they’ve figured out how to create an immune system reaction to prevent cocaine from even reaching the brain. In Mice.

When I had to come up with a topic for a three-minute presentation for the HIV/blood borne pathogens awareness class that is a state-requirement for my chemical dependency counseling license, I chose to do a little more research into what was being announced, how it worked in the body and what else it might do.  That was a bit of a lofty presentation goal for a maximum of three strictly timed minutes.  I had to rush a bit at the end, but come with me to class today and watch my presentation…

A couple things I left out of my brief presentation:  the cocaine “immunity” is not permanent.  They found that these cocaine-eating antibodies last about 13 weeks (in mice) .  There doesn’t seem to be any description of any studies on coke-headed mice.  By that, I mean mice who had already become addicted to cocaine.  I’ve heard of instances of mice, when given a choice between food and cocaine, choose cocaine to the point that they starve themselves to death.  We don’t know what the treatments this discovery suggests do for cravings

* * *

On Charlie Sheen, I want to publicly admit that I went a bit overboard in my last blog when discussing old Charlie.  I know many of you are probably already tired of hearing about the guy, so I’ll keep this brief.  See, what I was trying to say was that I thought only through him crashing and burning was he ever going to want to “get better.”  I still think that.  To take that analysis and then actively wishing harm upon the guy under the guise of discussing hubris, that was going too far on my part.  We all tend to attack in others what we don’t like about ourselves, and so to go after the guy for his unbridled arrogance, upon reflection, tells me more about myself and what I need to work on as opposed to anything about Charlie.

Sorry, Charlie.  After watching you, yet again, on Dateline today, calming planning strategies with your posse as to how turn your upsurge in infamy into merchandising opportunities, I still think you’re crazy.  Crazy like a fox.

* * *

We’ll conclude with a couple songs from last night’s open mic night!!   A week or so ago, I posted a “homer version” of this song I found on YouTube from Lisa Dudley, “Just For Today”…  Here is a live version.

Did I mention that after I sent Lisa Dudley the video, she wrote me back saying that it was a “dream come true” to have had someone cover one of her songs?  That was kinda neat.  It never hurts to help fulfill people’s dreams.

The second song is a bit darker.  You might have seen this already, as it’s about the 4th or 5th time I think I’ve posted me singing this song on YouTube.  Regardless, I think it worked out pretty well.

It is a mad world sometimes, particularly here in part of the FriendBurst blogs lately.  I wish the political bloggers here would go back to debating the issues (an activity I only occasionally participate in, but enjoy reading) instead of bitching and moaning about who said what to who, ad hominen attacks and whiney drama blogs.   I recently sent invitations to a couple politically oriented friends to come by our little site here and check out the active political blogs… to think that this week’s sample was what they might have found… come on, people, we’re better than this.