Addiction Cure In Next Ten Years?

Now don’t get all excited, but Popular Mechanics, a mag that perhaps has a better understanding and track record of what the future holds than most forecasting outfits, is predicting the end of drug addiction in our near future.  The December edition’s feature article  110 Predictions For the Next 110 Years makes the bold prognostication that some time in the next ten years:

2012—2022

· Vaccines will wipe out drug  addiction. The human immune system is supremely adept at  detecting and neutralizing foreign substances. Why not train it to target  illicit ones? That’s the idea behind addiction vaccines: Persuade the body to  produce antibodies that shut down drug molecules before they get to the brain.  The concept works in mice. Human trials are under way.

Read more: 110 Predictions For the Next 110 Years – Popular Mechanics

While I do believe they will do exactly what they have predicted above, I don’t believe that will be the end of addiction.  I don’t believe shutting down the pleasant side effects(highs), nor the biochemical mumbo jumbo (I don’t pretend to understand what scientist do, about receptor,s and so on, and so on) that goes into what we call addiction, will be the answer to the problem.  I firmly believe it is just as much a behavioral/mental issue, that can not be treated by drugs alone.  I hope that these new wonder vaccines of the future do happen and can see where they would be of benefit in treatment, but my prediction is that there will never be a magic pill that cure’s drug addiction.  Sometime in the distant future, maybe they will figure out how to weed out addiction genes before birth, thus stopping the problem before it starts, but that’s just my guess, what’s yours?