The considerable impact that drug abuse has upon humanities endeavors to generate a expansive civilized society calls for a multitude of viable processes to resolve the problem at its sources. The most natural place being the addictive nature of the stuff, hijacking the mind of those who have come to use it; and most often to no benefit to themselves, nor anyone else.
The is an endeavor presently going on to make a vaccine for abused drugs. The way it functions is not very complex, nor is the basic way it is made. It works by enlisting the immune system into the effort. Making it infection hunting cells attach themselves to the drug. Having one cell even grab even a multitude of the small chemical compound(s) at the same time. This combination is definitely too large to get past the blood brain barrier into the brain, and so having its effect on the brain (directly) thwarted. It is made by simple attaching the drug to the surface of something the immune system already recognizes as an infectious agent. This triggers the immune system to go after just the drug.
It has been about a year [February 2007] since I read about medicines endeavor. I'll try to give you the link here. Since I'm subscribed to this magazine it may work different to those that are not. Please let me hear of it, if that is the case. I'll try to present it in another form that is not copyrighted.
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070210/bob9.asp
Shortly after that time, I tried to purchase some gelatin capsules over the Internet. When I tried to use them they didn't taste just right. When I napped latter in the day, I was 'hearing' something like flies stuck of fly paper faintly in my head. Who know what was going on...? I can say that gelatin is considered high in nutrients, and would likely feed some infectious type of bug; and perhaps have it stick to something else. You may have read in the article that the vaccine is not something for someone who doesn't really want to stop the abuse. It is a considerable help though, to those that do, as it eventually removes what causes the addictive response. They say it would take about two months to get the immune system up to addressing the load the drug puts on it. There are those that say, those that did not want to quite may only try to use more, even to the point of potentially reaching toxic level in the body.
As far as I'm concern, there should be a significant effort as soon as possible to test a viable vaccine on humans having the problem of abuse. They are risking much by their abuse, and if they see the vaccine as a possible solution, waiving some of their rights for the sake of humanity as a whole should be seen as a 'potentially' heroic sacrifice, as being one directly addressing the effects that getting drug money into the hands of some of the dealers. In fact should their health see compromise, or they are otherwise needing to address a medical concern potentially related to it, I would say the military's medical services should be free for them to use. It is not impossible that there will be an effort by those promoting, and profiting from, the abuse to design drugs that are just different enough to evade the immune system, and thus call for a refined vaccine to be made for it also. They are in effect on the front lines of the struggle to address this matter, that spills into so many lives.