A British scientist's recent announcement that he had found a way to develop a drug that mimics the happy effects of alcohol--sociability and relaxation--without producing next-day headaches or ravaging the body sparked an immediate controversy.
"Every sip of alcohol does rot your liver," said David Nutt, a professor of psychopharmacology at Bristol University, "and I think it would be preferable to have something that doesn't rot your liver" but makes you feel happy.
Nutt said he had also come up with a way to instantly sober up from the fake drunk feeling--by taking a drug now used to treat tranquilizer overdoses. But while this cocktail of drugs (still in the theoretical research phase) may seem like a dream come true for anyone who has ever awoken with a splitting headache following a night of overindulgence, is taking a drug to produce a "good drunk" really a good idea?
Wilkie Wilson, a professor of pharmacology and co-author of "Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs from Alcohol to Ecstasy," suggested that eliminating all the bad effects of alcohol could do more harm than good. "Right now we have a drug--alcohol--with a built-in aversive effect if you get too much of it," he said.
Sure, cirrhosis of the liver can kill you, and it would be nice to have a drug to substitute for the cause of that disease, said Wilson, a professor at Duke University. "But the aversive effects of nausea and hangovers tend to deter a lot of people from drinking too much."
Nutt's findings, which will be published in May in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, have generated much buzz in British newspapers since a preview of his research was published on the New Scientist magazine's Web site in early April.
One Web site, LiveScience.com, hailed Nutt's proposed "good drunk" drug as a collision of science fiction and real life, likening it to synthehol, a drink consumed on the television show "Star Trek: The Next Generation." The sci-fi drink allows quaffers to become intoxicated without experiencing hangovers and to easily reverse the effects simply by wishing to be sober.
Wilson said there was some merit to Nutt's claim that drinks containing the "good drunk" additives could be healthy alternatives for people who drink cocktails or alcopops--sweet drinks which mask the flavor of alcohol--solely for the purpose of getting smashed.
"It might be used as a drug for people who are really interested in acute intoxication, and it would be healthier for them," Wilson said. "The question I have is, do we want people that intoxicated without any negative feedback?"
The lowering of inhibitions that Nutt's theoretical drug promises could lead people to do all the things they do when they're drunk: dance on tables, sing karaoke, make inebriated phone calls to ex-lovers and drive their cars into other cars. Wilson said fear of nausea or hangovers can act as a healthy check on throwing inhibitions out the window.
Marsha Bates, a professor of psychology at the Rutgers University Center of Alcohol Studies, said alcohol-related health problems occur most often in people who drink excessive quantities over a long period. "A lot of studies have shown that people who drink to get intoxicated are trying to manipulate and regulate their emotions," she said. A drug to mimic drunkenness won't help with those problems.
For moderate drinkers, she said, eliminating alcohol consumption could actually be a bad thing. "If you are a light drinker of alcohol," she said, "that's actually been associated with a lot of health benefits."
Nutt said his research shows that thousands of lives lost to alcohol-induced liver, heart and brain damage could be saved by producing drinks that contain partial agonists, or PAs. When alcohol is consumed, Nutt said, it binds to signal molecules in the brain called GABA-A receptors. Some subtypes of these molecules are associated with the distinct effects of alcohol. According to Nutt, PAs would bind strongly to the good subtypes and not to the bad ones.
Drinks made with PAs would also eliminate the lack of coordination, aggressiveness and amnesia commonly associated with drinking too much. And then the effects could be reversed with a dose of a drug called flumazenil. "You could, in theory, go to a party and have fun and then take the antidote and drive home with no problem," Nutt said.
He dismisses critics who question whether it's ethical to market a lifestyle drug that imitates drunkenness. Alcohol is acceptable and legally available today, he said, only because it has been around for so long. "It's because it's historical, and we've used it for centuries, that people are willing to put up with the toxicity," he said.
Nutt said he would like to stir up enough public support to convince drug companies to conduct research on producing drinks with PAs and to get governments to consider making them legal. "At this stage we need to have the political and social debate," Nutt said. "If governments are willing to look into an alcohol alternative, then it would be possible."
It's unlikely, however, that the drugs would ever be available over the counter--or over the bar. They would almost certainly be regulated under strict drug laws, unlike alcohol, which is regulated under food and drink laws.
"Alcohol has a very preferential status because it is sold as a foodstuff," Nutt said. "If we could change the law, 10 years or so down the road we would have an alternative to alcohol that at least some people would prefer."
