Drugs called partial agonists, or PAs, are capable of mimicking the pleasurable effects of alcohol while avoiding the negative ones, according to David Nutt, a professor of pharmacology at Bristol University in the UK.
Pharmacological advances are enabling scientists to understand the complex neurological reactions to alcohol and determine which responses create alcohol's enjoyable effects and which can cause physical and mental health problems.
While there's no denying that alcohol makes drinkers feel more fun, relaxed, and sociable, having more than a few drinks usually results in impairment of judgement and senses, lack of coordination, harm to the liver, heart and brain and, in some, feelings of aggression.
According to New Scientist magazine, PAs replicate only the agreeable effects of alcohol.
"You could design one chemical to replace all the benefits of alcohol...and it would save hundreds of lives," Nutt says.
Although the idea is still at the proposal stage, Nutt says there is no scientific reason why the drinks using PAs couldn't be made right now.
An additional benefit of PAs is that they can be neutralized by a drug that already exists called flumazenil.
"You could envisage the situation where people are at a party where PAs are taken," Nutt says, "and before the end of the night, revelers take a long-lasting flumazenil and they immediately sober up, so they can drive home."
In an article of Nutt's, that will be published in the May issue of the Journal of Psychopharmacology, he says that the drugs would have to be licensed as medicines under current British legislation, which could present difficulties for bars. The advantages of PAs could bring about a change in law, however.
"The benefits to society could be so profound that legislative change might be readily produced," Nutt says.
