From: [W--n--o] at [Monkeyhouse.Fremont.CA.US] (Wonko the Sane)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Three articles from The Economist (long)
Date: 4 Jul 1993 01:34:02 GMT

Howdy All!

This article is from the May 15th-21st issue of The Economist, a magazine
that I personally feel is usually spot on in  it's analysis of just about
anything. It has now further gained my respect for addressing this issue.

In any case, the front cover has a picture of someone being  
injected with something and holding a candle (the only light source,  
making the overall effect somewhat murky).  The banner print says, "Bring  
drugs within the law", which is the title of the following article  
reproduced here without permission.  Assume that all typos are mine.

-----------------------

	In 1883, Benjamin Ward Richardson, a distinguished British doctor,  
denounced the evils of drinking tea.  He said it caused an "extremely  
nervous semi-hysterical condition".  In 1936, an article in the American  
Journal of Nursing claimed that a marijuana taker "will suddenly turn with  
murderous violence upon whomever is nearest to him".  Tea and marijuana  
have three things in common: they alter the moods of those who take them,  
they are regarded as tolerable safe, and they are addictive.
	Attitudes to addiction are complicated and often contradictory.   
Tea and marijuana are in themselves fairly harmless, yet tea is generally  
legal and marijuana is not.  Tobacco and cocaine are harmful but, again,  
tobacco is almost universally allowed, whereas most readers of The  
Economist live in countries which may imprison you for possessing cocaine.   
Throw in the joker of addictions which come not in syringes or cigarettes,  
but in casinos and computer cartridges, and you have a fine arena for  
combat between libertarians and puritans.
	This battle, always lively, has just become hotter.  On April 28th  
Bill Clinton appointed Lee Brown, a former policeman, as America's new  
"drug tsar", and thus leader of the worlds toughest prohibition programme  
(see page 31 [I'll type that one in after this one --Wonko]).  Ten days  
before, Italians had voted to move in the other direction by scrapping the  
harshest measures of their drug laws.
	Such boldness is rare.  The attitude of most electorates and  
governments is to deplore the problems that the illegal drug trade brings,  
view the whole matter with distaste, and sit on the status quo--a policy  
of sweeping prohibition.  Yet the problems cannot be ignored.  The crime  
to which some addicts resort to finance their habits, and in which the  
suppliers of illegal drugs habitually engage, exacts its price in victims'  
lives, not just money.  The illegal trade in drugs supports organised  
crime the world over.  It pulls drug-takers into a world of filthy  
needles, poisoned doses and pushers bent upon selling them more addictive  
and dangerous fixes.
	Yet most people still balk at exploring ways in which a legal  
regime might undermine such effects.  Their refusal owes something to a  
distaste for addiction in itself.  This is an argument shot through with  
inconsistency.  The strongest disapproval often comes from those who  
scream about liberties if their own particular indulgences--for assault  
rifles, say--are attacked.  Addiction to cigarettes is reckoned to be the  
chief avoidable cause of death in the world.  Alcohol deprives boozers of  
their livers and their memories, and ends the lives of all too many  
innocents who get smashed on the roads by the inebriated.  Yet here the  
idea of dissuasion within the law is broadly accepted.
	A much sounder basis for doubt is the worry that legalisation  
would increase drug-taking, and that rising consumption and addiction  
would overwhelm the gains to be had from getting drugs within the law.   
Yet legalisation should not be taken to mean a lawless free-for-all, with  
no restraint on the supply or use of drugs.  Done properly, it would allow  
governments to take control of the distribution and quality of these  
substances away from the criminals.  Quality control is decisive, because  
much of the damage done by drugs bought on street corners is caused by  
adulterated products; in much the same way, carelessly distilled hooch can  
cause blindness.
	Supply would be regulated by a system of government licences  
analogous to those already in force for tobacco and alcohol (and which  
would serve, among other things, to keep drugs out of the hands of  
children), backed by strict policing and heavy penalties.  The toughness  
of the regime would rise with the addictiveness of the drug in question--a  
light touch for marijuana, an extremely dissuasive one for heroin.
	Such legalisation would not magically dispense with the need for  
policemen, but it would make the needed policing more manageable.   
Particularly in the business of softer drugs, where the taxes can be lower  
and the restrictions less onerous, and where the first trial steps towards  
legalisation should take place, it would undermine the "risk premium" that  
provides drug cartels with their profits.  Taxes raised on what is  
reckoned to be the world's largest untaxed industry would help governments  
spend money on treatment and education, which would do more good than the  
billions currently spent on attempting to throttle the criminal supply of  
drugs of all sorts.


The Quest for Soma [Heading in bold print --Wonko]

	There is another consideration, one for the future.  The  
illegality of drugs, coupled with distaste for pleasurable addiction, is  
skewing research.  Progress is being made by scientists in understanding  
both what causes the pleasure of drugs and what makes the pleasure so hard  
to give up (see page 105 [I'll type this one in too --Wonko]).  Currently  
such research is obliged to have only one aim--unhooking existing addicts.   
It might have another.  In many areas of pharmacology, researchers are  
exploring the idea of "designer drugs", chemicals tailored to fit  
harmlessly into human biochemistry.  Addiction research should be  
encouraged to do the same: to move beyond devising better therapies for  
those who wish to kick the drug habit, into the invention of safer, more  
effective and less habit-forming highs.  At the moment it cannot, for a  
safe drug equals a "substance abuse" equals a crime.
	The fact remains that any legal regime which lowers the economic  
incentive for drugs-crime will surely boost drug consumption.  The  
question is by how much.  One possible pointer is that, when asked, people  
say it will not rise a lot.  In opinion polls, Americans generally insist  
that they would not be persuaded by legalisation to try drugs they are not  
taking now.  There is some reason to believe them, despite the first  
instinct to be sceptical, since they already have access to plenty of  
mindbending substances, from alcohol and tobacco to diet pills.
	Then there is reassurance from experiments.  The American states  
that decriminalised marijuana during the 1970s saw no divergence in the  
consumption of the drug from that in neighbouring states which continued  
to prohibit it.  Extensive experience with decriminalisation in Holland  
shows that not only is there no accompanying surge in  
consumption--allowing for the inrush of addicts from more restrictive  
countries--but related crime falls when drugs are legalised.
	One further argument is used by defenders of the status quo.  They  
say that, even if the case for exploring legalisation were conceded by  
governments, public resistance would doom the idea.  This is hardly  
surprising, given the way governments the would over have for decades  
hammered home the dogma of prohibition.  A more rational discussion could  
do much to change public opinion.  Only a few years before alcohol  
prohibition was repealed in the United States in 1933, public sentiment  
was similarly dominated by the opinions of the country's prohibitionist  
leaders.
	There are signs that public instincts are changing.  In recent  
months a growing number of federal judges and lawyers have voiced their  
exasperation with America's approach to drugs.  Their objections led  
politicians in Washington to hold a meeting earlier this month to rethink  
the country's failed drugs policies.  Janet Reno, the attorney-general,  
started the day be describing her doubts about America's current approach.   
It ended, significantly, with a discussion of the merits of legalisation.   
Neither Mr. Brown nor Ms. Reno, and certainly not their boss Mr. Clinton,  
has so far supported legalisation.  But they have done what no American  
administration has dared do in living memory--set the scene for a proper  
debate.

---------------------

Well, so much for the first article.  On page 31 of the same issue, there  
is a piece called "Drugs policy:  The enemy within", which is reproduced  
just below.  Again, all typos are likely to be mine.

---------------------

	A quiet revolt has been taking place in courtrooms across America.   
It has been led by judges disillusioned with the country's war on drugs.
	On April 29th Harold Greene, a prominent federal judge in  
Washington, ruled that important elements of the mandatory sentencing laws  
for drugs offenders were unconstitutional.  Less than two weeks earlier,  
two senior federal judges, Jack Weinstein, and Whitman Knapp, of New York,  
had announced that they would no longer preside over drugs cases.  In  
recent months, a number of federal judges have taken such a stance.  It  
might be a sign, much further down the road, of a change in policy.
	Lee Brown, the former New York police chief who was appointed as  
"drug tsar" by Bill Clinton on April 28th, is thought to be a good  
appointment.  Apart from that, Mr Clinton has not done much with drugs  
policy.  Granted, he has been in office a short while, and has had much to  
occupy him.  But his drug-policy staff has been cut, and the budget  
request he has sent to Congress looks just like the one sent by George  
Bush.  He has asked for much the same amount of money, divided up in the  
same way: two-thirds of the money to criminal-enforcement efforts,  
one-third to treatment.
	Some had hoped for a change of emphasis.  Although the "war on  
drugs" was first promoted by Richard Nixon in 1972, it was not until  
George Bush's term that the war began in earnest.  Mr Bush appointed  
though-talking drug tsars and spent $40 billion to attack traffickers  
abroad and punish pushers and users at home.  The result has been  
disappointing.  cocaine is available about as freely and cheaply today as  
in 1989.  Drug-related violence in the cities is still high.
	The most praiseworthy part of the Bush policy was a drop in  
overall cocaine-taking.  But hard-core addicts, who account for  
four-fifths of all consumption, are taking as much as ever.  Mark Kleiman,  
of Harvard University, argues that Mr Bush's policies, put in place soon  
after the peak in cocaine's popularity, did little to affect a decline  
already under way.  Changing fashion (including the recent surge in  
heroin-taking) probably deserves the credit for that.
	If casual consumption of cocaine is down, it may well be the  
result of education and treatment programmes rather than criminal  
enforcement.  But enforcement has been, and remains, the core of American  
policy.  Presidents, naturally, do not want to be seen to condone the  
taking of drugs; the public temper is for stiff penalties and the locking  
up of offenders, not tender care.  But the effect of the policy, as the  
American Bar Association pointed out in a recent report, is that the  
country's prisons are filled not only with drug-handlers but also with  
drug-takers, and cannot cope with the numbers.  Neal Sonnett, the head of  
the ABA's criminal-justice section, notes with particular alarm the sharp  
rise in incarceration of low-level drug offenders, which has hindered  
efforts to fight more serious, and violent, crime.  He thinks the  
criminal-justice system may be "on the point of collapse".
	If it is, it will be for reasons to do with overall levels of  
sentencing for many sorts of crimes, not merely those related to drugs.   
But such arguments livened up a drugs meeting held in Washington on May  
7th to rethink America's policies.  At the start of the day Janet Reno,  
the attorney-general, admitted dissatisfaction with the present emphasis  
on enforcement efforts, and suggested the mandatory sentencing guidelines  
might be reviewed.  The speech confirmed hints from Mr. Clinton that,  
despite his status-quo budget, he plants to cut back on enforcement  
efforts, especially overseas, in favour of trying to reduce demand at  
home.
	Another significant aspect of the meeting was the openness of  
debate.  Prohibition was not unquestioningly supported.  Ethan Nadelmann,  
a drugs expert who heads the Princeton Working Group, which is developing  
alternative ideas to prohibition, notes that legalisation of drugs was  
given a serious hearing.  The way forward, he believes, is towards "harm  
reduction".  Such efforts, like the one supported by Kurt Schmoke, the  
mayor of Baltimore, build on programmes from parts of Europe and Australia  
which treat drug-taking not as a criminal matter, but more as an issue of  
personal choice and public health.
	A small chorus has applauded such a shift in resources, arguing  
that prohibition of drugs will always fail so long as Americans remain so  
determined to get hold of them.  Mr. Clinton, who got himself in plenty of  
trouble during the campaign for not inhaling marijuana, is unlikely to go  
that far.

-------------------

Finally, the last article is in the "Science and Technology" section of  
this issue.  It's the longest of the three articles, and starts with a  
photo montage showing various pills, vials, crystals, lines on mirrors, a  
needle and a spoon, a roulette wheel, and a Nintendo Game Boy.  The title  
of the article is "High and hooked".  Yet again, typos are most likely  
mine.

-------------------

A better understanding of how addictions work could provide benefits for  
science, for medicine and for recreation [header in bold on top of the  
article --wonko]

	In 1964 Aryeh Routtenberg stuck electrodes into the brains of his  
experimental rats.  The electrodes were so positioned that current flowing  
though them caused a particular pleasure.  For one hour a day, each rat  
could control this current by means of a lever in its cage.  Another  
lever, which also worked for just that one hour, controlled the food  
supply.  There was no contest between the levers.  The rats, too busy  
mainlining current to stop for food, wasted away to ecstatic death.
	The link between pleasure and addiction is not always so extreme,  
but more mundane addictions have brought about millions of less dramatic  
deaths outside the laboratory, and caused untold misery and pain.  The  
substances to which people get addicted, though, also bring great pleasure  
to billions--some addicted, some not.  They are the basis of several  
multi-billion dollar industries around the world.  Some 60m Americans  
smoke tobacco; three-quarters of West European adults drink alcohol; no  
one knows how many people around the world consume caffeine in tea, coffee  
or cola.  Figures for illegal drugs are harder to come by, but around 2m  
Americans are thought to take cocaine, and many more than that have smokes  
marijuana.
	Not all the people who indulge in these tastes are addicts--that  
is, they do not depend on their habit in a way that seems clearly abnormal  
to the bulk of people who do not share their tastes.  Though almost  
everyone who smokes tobacco is hooked, drinkers are not necessarily  
alcoholics and not all heroin users are hopeless junkies.  Pleasure and  
the addiction need not come together--either can be present without the  
other.  yet the two are obviously connected.  Neuroscientists are now  
using the tools of molecular biology to find the links between them, deep  
in the recesses of the brain.


The kick from cocaine [boldface paragraph header --Wonko]

	The cerebral nooks and crannies of interest are those between  
nerve cells--synapses.  To jump over the gap between two cells, a nerve  
impulse has to be translated from electricity to chemicals and back.  The  
first cell releases a chemical called a neurotransmitter into the synaptic  
gap.  These molecules are then picked up by receptor proteins on the  
surface of the second cell.  The neurotransmitter fits the receptor as a  
key fits a lock.  The unlocking of the receptor leads to the creation or  
suppression of a nerve impulse in the second cell.
	There are many different types of neurotransmitter, and thus of  
synapse; different pathways in the brain need their different properties.   
It is by subverting some of these synapses, and thus some of the brain's  
pathways, that drugs produce pleasure.  it is through changing them in a  
more fundamental way that the drugs cause addiction.
	The first evidence for this is almost 20 years old.  Recently it  
has started to pile up quite quickly.  In 1975 Solomon Snyder, at Johns  
Hopkins University in Baltimore, Hans Kosterlitz of the University of  
Aberdeen in Scotland and John Hughes of Parke-Davis, and English  
pharmaceuticals company, found out how heroin, then drug-du-jour for  
worried policy-makers, works.  Dr. Snyder discovered there was a receptor  
protein in mammalian brains which heroin would stick to.  Dr. Kosterlitz  
and Dr. Hughes reasoned that nature was unlikely to have produced such a  
lock without also evolving a key.
	Working independently, they found a chemical in the body that  
fitted into the same receptor as heroin; Dr. Kosterlitz named it  
"endorphin".  This type of neurotransmitter (there are, it turns out, at  
least three different endorphins) damps down pain by suppressing the  
signals which transmit it; it also provides feelings of well-being.   
heroin acts as an ill-fitting key which can open the lock but cannot then  
be withdrawn.  The synapse is over-stimulated.  Unusually pleasurable  
sensations result.
	If you replace heroin and endorphins with nicotine and the  
neurotransmitter acetylcholine, or with caffeine and adenosine, or Valium  
and gamma-amino butyric acid, or marijuana and anadamide, the same story  
can be told.  Other drugs work in slightly more subtle ways.  Alcohol does  
not mimic a neurotransmitter, but at least some of its effects come from  
messing up the same synapses that heroin works on.
	Cocaine, which has replaced heroin as the drug of concern in  
America, and has thus been extensively researched, works on nerves that  
use the neurotransmitter dopamine.  These nerves are found in, among other  
places, the mesolimbic system--the part of the brain which seems to  
generate emotion.  Cocaine subverts the pathway not by binding to dopamine  
receptors, but by sticking to a molecule called, inelegantly, the dopamine  
re-uptake transporter.
	Nerve cells, canny little things, recycle their neurtransmitters.   
Receptor molecules spit out their neurotransmitters once they have served  
their purpose, and the cell whence they came mops them up for reuse.   
Block this re-uptake, and the transmitters will just sit in the synaptic  
gap, stimulating the receptors again and again and again.  Another  
strategy is to jam the re-uptake system open, so that dopamine flows  
though it the wrong way all the time, keeping the gap suffused with the  
neurotransmitter.  That is what amphetamines do.
	The fact that amphetamines and cocaine work in similar ways will  
come as no surprise to anyone who has tried both.  The nature of the high  
a drug provides depends on the type of neurotransmitter it interferes  
with.  but the brain is a complex place; the separate systems within it  
that use different neurotransmitters all interact.  A drug acting on one  
set of synapses can have secondary and tertiary effects all over the  
place.  That is why drug experiences are so varied.
	The range of things that can be addictive, though, is wider even  
than the range of available drugs.  Foreign bodies in the synapses are not  
an absolute prerequisite for an addiction.  Something as straightforward  
as healthy exercise can, in the extreme, hook.  In the case of exercise it  
appears that the body becomes addicted to the endorphins it produces to  
ameliorate the pain and stress.
	Other behaviours that carry an intensity with them--and thus  
presumable overstimulate some parts of the brain's wiring--can produce  
similar effects, though the synapses involved have yet to be charted.   
Gambling has many of the characteristics of drug taking--a euphoric high,  
and a craving in the addict.  Some people believe themselves addicted to  
sex; lawyers in England recently convinced a jury that a teenage hacker  
was addicted to computing. [OH MY GOD!  NETNEWS IS ADDICTIVE!  QUICK, GO  
TO ALT.ABUSE.RECOVERY!  --Wonko ;-)]
	It is easy to see some such "addictions" as excuses, especially as  
the term resists strict definition.  But addiction to chemicals is clearly  
real, and there seems no reason to believe that compulsive chemical-taking  
is necessarily in a different class from other acquired compulsive habits.   
Anyway, chemical dependency is easier to study than other sorts.  That is  
why it has been possible to locate the roots of pleasure in the  
synapses--and why it has been possible to find the roots of withdrawal  
there, too.


Cold turkey [boldface header --Wonko]

Clinically, addiction can be characterised by two things: craving and  
withdrawal.  Craving is still the subject of a certain amount of  
scientific handwaving.  The best the psychologists can do is describe the  
process as one of positive re-inforcement--which means that if you like  
something, you will tend to do it again.  Having their receptors  
overstimulated is something people tend to like a lot.  How this "liking"  
translates into neural circuitry is not yet clear.
	Withdrawal, the physical and mental turmoil that follows when an  
addiction is interrupted, is proving more tractable to experimental  
analysis.  A suggestive picture of how it works can be pieced together, as  
long as you do not mind taking the pieces from different studies of  
different drugs: work on cocaine by Nora Volcow at Brookhaven National  
Laboratory, among others; on cocaine and amphetamines by Bruce Cohen of  
McLean Hospital in Boston; on heroin by Zvi Vogel at the Weizmann  
Institute in Rehovot in Israel and Antol Shofelmeer at the Free University  
in Amsterdam; an on benzodiazepines (such as Valium) by Erick Sigel at the  
University of Berne.
	Again, the synapse is the scene of the action.  Most biological  
systems have feedback mechanisms that help smooth out the little  
fluctuations that life throws at them.  Synapses are no exception.  The  
receiving cell can adjust itself to changes in the behaviour of the  
transmitting cell in two ways.  It can finetune the signal the receptors  
pass on, and it can change the number of receptors.
	The receptor molecules are conduits for information, with one end  
outside the cell and the other inside.  When a neurotransmitter attaches  
itself outside, the part on the inside changes its shape.  In this new  
shape, it can accommodate molecules called G-proteins, which hang around  
inside the cell.  These G-proteins are, themselves, also shape-changers.   
Interacting with the receptor activates the G-proteins; these then head  
off to spread the word via yet more molecules, called second messengers.
	the second messengers tell the cell about the signal from the  
neurotransmitters.  One part of the cell that listens is the system which  
sends out and suppresses nerve impulses.  Another avid audience is made up  
of the enzymes which add phosphate groups to proteins, some of which help  
in the production of impulses.  More messages make them more active, and  
more likely to add phosphate to receptor molecules.  A phosphorylated  
receptor is an unhappy receptor.  It is reluctant to accommodate  
G-proteins and thus to bring information in from the outside.
	The nucleus, which controls the production of proteins, and also  
listens to the second messengers.  Lots of chatter from them suggests to  
the nucleus that there are too many receptors at the synapse, so it brings  
their manufacture to a halt.  Insert an addictive drug into the system and  
the din from the second messengers becomes deafening.  The result is fewer  
receptor molecules.
	Both the phosphorylation of receptors and their absence means that  
it takes more of the drug to obtain the same effect.  Those high doses, in  
turn, lead to even less sensitive synapses.  And they also lead to  
synapses that can no longer function without the drug.  The cell gets used  
to damming the flood of drug-induced noise in order to be able to deal  
with the faint whispers of reality that float on top of it.  Remove the  
drug, and the normal signals can no longer get over the barrier that has  
been erected.  The system goes from getting too much of the  
neurotransmitter's effects to not enough; heaven turns to hell.
	Put this way, the molecular picture seems obvious.  It fits with a  
common experience of addiction, that of needing to do more and more of the  
drug just to keep from feeling bad.  Of course, it cannot be that  
simple--after all drugs that work on the same neurotransmitter may vary in  
their addictiveness.  And people vary, too, in their susceptibility to  
addiction.  Then again, addictions to substances that affect different  
types of synapse can be quite similar--and some people seem to be prone to  
addiction per se, rather than just to have a weakness for a particular  
substance.  And the fact that addiction remains after withdrawal has  
ended--a fact attested to at Alcoholics Anonymous every day--suggests  
there is a more general problem to look at.


Dopamine heads [boldface header --Wonko]

	For more evidence that addictions have something in common in the  
way they act on the brain as a whole, no matter which pathways they  
stimulate, look at the pictures on this page.  [two computer imaged  
pictures with lighter and darker patches, one of the left half of a brain,  
and another of the right half.  The left half has darker blotches.  Under  
the left half is the caption "Your brain" and, as you might expect, the  
right half has "Your brain on drugs" --Wonko]  Edythe London, who works at  
America's National Institute on Drug Abuse, studies glucose metabolism in  
the brains of people with addictions.  Glucose is the body's principal  
fuel, so its use is a good index of how active an area is.  Dr London's  
pictures show that, in certain parts of the brain, addicts use less  
glucose than non-addicts do.  The difference applies regardless of what  
drug is being used, and it is still visible when they are not under the  
influence.
	Other clues to a general theory of addiction have led researchers  
to focus on the dopamine system--even when looking at drugs which do not  
affect dopamine receptors.  There is evidence that many, and possibly all,  
addictions affect the dopamine cells in the brain's mesolimbic system.  In  
the case of cocaine this effect is direct, which may account for the  
drug's peculiar potency.  for other drugs it seems to be indirect, brought  
about by connections between the dopamine system and the other  
neurotransmitter systems.
	Inside the dopamine system, the researchers' attention has lighted  
on D2.  it should come as no surprise by now to hear that D2 is a protein  
found in synapses, one of the three different receptor proteins for  
dopamine.  The detailed make-up of these proteins can vary from person to  
person--variation that comes from differences in the gene which describes  
the protein.  So the different variants of D2 are inherited.
	It was inheritance that led the researchers to D2.  In the 1970s a  
series of Danish studies compared the children and step-children of  
alcoholic fathers.  The former proved more likely to succumb to the same  
addiction.  This, and the evidence that identical twins are more likely to  
share an alcoholic fate than are non-identical twins, suggested that genes  
were playing a role.  In 1990, to great excitement, Kenneth Blum of the  
University of Texas at San Antonio, and Ernest Noble of the University of  
California, Los Angeles, announced that they had found a gene peculiarly  
common among alcoholics.  It described a form of the D2 receptor known as  
A1.
	This was challenged by several researchers, most notably Kenneth  
Kidd, of Yale.  Dr. Kidd points out that different ethnic groups have  
different frequencies of A1, which could confuse the statistics.  Others,  
convinced by Dr. Blum, Dr. Noble and subsequent work, have suggested that  
A1 frequencies may actually explain differences in alcoholism between  
ethnic groups, though this is far from certain.
	In 1992 George Uhl, of Johns Hopkins, found that a second variant  
of D2, known as B1, seemed peculiarly common in people addicted to  
tobacco, cocaine, heroin, tranquillizers, marijuana and amphetamines as  
well as alcohol--almost the whole list of commonly addictive substances.   
This is at least as controversial as the original finding; its meaning is  
not clear, nor is the nature of the difference between the different D2s.
	To link small variations in a single protein with the existence of  
an all-purpose "addictive personality" is to go a long way too far.  But  
there is evidence in one case for a link between personality and  
withdrawal symptoms--and to link withdrawal symptoms to specific molecules  
is not too farfetched.  About 40% of people prescribed courses of  
benzodiazepines to treat anxiety or insomnia can suffer some withdrawal  
symptoms--souped-up versions of the symptoms the drugs are used to  
treat--after the course of medication is finished.  Peter Tyrer, who  
worked at St. Charles' Hospital in London, has found that the people who  
suffer withdrawal share not a specific protein, but rather specific  
personality traits: insecurity, inability to make decisions, an  
over-reliance on the opinions of others.  Spot them, and you can save  
people from withdrawal.


Better living through chemistry [boldface header... gotta love these  
catchphrases --Wonko]

	The links between proteins, the lowly building blocks of the  
brain, and personalities, the high abstractions of the mind, are  
undoubtedly going to be convoluted--but evidence from both ends suggests  
they are there to be found.  What are the pharmaceutical companies, to  
which this should be of interest, doing about it?
	Some work is going into drugs to treat drug addiction.  Naltrexone  
keeps heroin from activating endorphin receptors, without activating them  
itself.  Methadone works in the same way as heroin, but less effectively;  
it thus provides a way off heroin that minimises withdrawal symptoms.   
Similar approaches to cocaine are being tried.  Drugs which act on  
dopamine pathways in general may have widespread effects on addiction.   
but drugs to defeat dependence are not the only possibilities.
	Some of the damage that comes from drug addiction, especially the  
physical damage, comes from secondary aspects of the drug.  Lung cancer,  
for examples, is caused by the substances that accompany nicotine in  
tobacco smoke, not by nicotine itself.  It might be possible to get rid of  
some of these problems without getting rid of the pleasure, even if it is  
not possible to get rid of the addictions.  Another option is to develop  
tests which could tell people if they were at risk of falling under a  
particular spell so that they could choose their pleasures wisely.
	Eventually, an understanding of neurotransmitters, receptors,  
G-proteins, and second messengers might allow pleasure and addiction to be  
decoupled--or at least allow withdrawal to be suppressed.  Though, on the  
face of it, the effects that cause pleasure in the short term are those  
that cause addiction in the long term, there is a lot of variability in  
the system that might be exploited.  Techniques like those used to target  
specific dopamine receptors in the treatment of Parkinson's disease,  
might, at least in principle, be used to fine tune a drug's effects at the  
synapse and produce low-addiction highs.  And pure substances tailored to  
neurotransmitter sites would have a good chance of being free of  
unpleasant side effects elsewhere in the body.  That would not create a  
brave new world; it might, perhaps, create a slightly happier one.

---------------------

Whew!  Boy, are my fingers tired.  I hope y'all appreciate the articles.   
It seems to me that they're chock full of researchers names in case anyone  
wants to do a little more serious reading and is willing to go through  
medical journals.  In any case, I hope my illegal reproduction of this  
article brings people greater enlightenment.

Wonko the Sane ([w--n--o] at [monkeyhouse.fremont.ca.us], NeXTMail accepted)