To combat this highly addictive illegal drug, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College are developing an “anti-cocaine vaccine” designed to keep the drug from creating the dopamine-induced high in the brain.

“The vaccine eats up the cocaine in the blood like a little Pac-man before it can reach the brain,” said lead investigator, Dr. Ronald G. Crystal, chairman of the Department of Genetic Medicine at the college.

“We believe this strategy is a win-win for those individuals, among the estimated 1.4 million cocaine users in the United States, who are committed to breaking their addiction to the drug,” he said. “Even if a person who receives the anti-cocaine vaccine falls off the wagon, cocaine will have no effect.”

According to the researchers’ report in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, they used a radiological technique to demonstrate the vaccine’s effectiveness in laboratory primates.