Cocaine is a prominent drug that is used by many people, especially those who like to go out drinking and need something to make sure they’ll be able to hang out long enough for after hours. The only thing stopping people from going overboard? The threat of death. Well, science has now given the entire population a reason to go out and get blown out of their fucking minds: an antidote!

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have shown that an injectable solution can protect mice from an otherwise lethal overdose of the Class A drug.

As of now, the antidote has only been tested on mice, but they’re hoping to move forward and do some human clinical trials. They are searching for a way to produce the solution cheap enough and in large quantities, before the testing on real beings who would use cocaine to the point of an overdose have the opportunity to see if this truly works.

‘This would be the first specific antidote for cocaine toxicity,’ said study author Dr Kim Janda.

‘It’s a human antibody so it should be relatively safe, it has a superior affinity for cocaine, and we examined it in a cocaine overdose model that mirrors a real-life scenario,’ he said.

In the United States, there are over 400,000 incidences that involve Cocaine in Emergency rooms, every year. Along with that large amount of abusers, there are also 5,000 overdoses that lead to death each year. Scientists are hoping their antidote could help keep the number of deaths and incidences down, but are unaware that the threat of death is what most likely keeps it that low (not that 5,000 is low).

The passive vaccine worked by crossing the blood-brain barrier, which caused the cocaine molecules to diffuse out of the brain tissue. At the same time it reduced the drug’s effects on the heart and nearby organs.

For those who enjoy peer pressuring others, this is awesome. And for those people who were like me and found the death consequences a good reason to say no, you’re fucked. Way to go science!

SOURCE

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