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To drink, yet remain sober

Ian Sample

Now, a cocktail that will not leave a hangover

London: It could be the perfect tipple: a drink that makes you merry without turning you into a slurring, stumbling liability and on course for a hangover.

If drinks containing PAs, or partial agonists, become a hit it could save hundreds of thousands of lives, as well as countless scenes of drunken embarrassment, according to the scientist who devised them. PAs mimic the "good" effects of alcohol, but none of the bad. Although at the proposal stage, drinks using PAs could be produced with existing technology.

David Nutt, a Professor of Psychopharmacology at Bristol University, said although alcohol makes us feel fun and sociable, it has the all too familiar side-effects of impairing our senses, ruining coordination, making us aggressive, and harming our livers, hearts and brains.

A reason for the increase in "binge intoxication" in Britain is the gradual increase in the strength of alcohol in beers. Twenty years ago the average strength of beers and lagers was between 3.5 per cent and 4 per cent. The most popular drinks are now in the 5 per cent to 5.5 per cent range and some strong lagers are up to 8 per cent alcohol.

Advances in pharmacology mean that scientists are able to unravel the complex neurological responses to alcohol and find out which reactions lead to positive, enjoyable effects and which cause mental and physical health problems.

According to New Scientist, PAs produce only the "desirable" effects of alcohol. "You could design one chemical to replace all the benefits of alcohol and in drinks it would save hundreds of thousands of lives," Prof. Nutt said.

PAs have the added benefit of being neutralised by an existing drug called flumazenil. "You could envisage the situation where people are at a party where PAs are taken and before the end of the night, revellers take a long-lasting flumazenil and they immediately sober up, so they can drive home," he said.

Critics argue any such chemical will be abused, but tests on animals show that overdoses do not seem to cause problems and there are few signs of the animals becoming dependent or suffering withdrawal symptoms.

Writing in next month's issue of the Journal of Psychopharmacology, Prof. Nutt said under current British legislation the drugs would need to be licensed as medicines, which could pose a problem for bars. But the advantages of PAs might force a change in the law.

"The benefits to society could be so profound that legislative change might be readily produced."

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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