A pill that mimics the drunken effects of alcohol but does not create hangover is being developed by a U.K. scientist, The Epoch Times reported.
In an article he submitted to The Guardian on Monday, British neuroscientist and former government advisor David Nutt said he's on the verge of creating a drug that would allow people to get drunk without causing hangovers or impairing their abilities.
"It sounds like science fiction but these ambitions are well within the grasp of modern neuroscience," he wrote.
According to Nutt, the alcohol would do for alcohol what e-cigarettes had done for smoking. The drug would give the user the feeling of intoxication, relaxation and a lack of inhibition, without the damaging side effects.
Alcohol, one of the oldest and most dangerous drugs, is responsible for about 2.5 million deaths worldwide.
"The reasons for this are well known: alcohol is toxic to all body systems, and particularly the liver, heart and brain," Nutt wrote. "It makes users uninhibited, leading to a vast amount of violence and is also quite likely to cause dependence, so about 10% of users get locked into addiction."
Nutt said alcohol is so toxic, that if it was discovered today it could never be sold under current food regulations, let alone pharmaceutical safety thresholds.
The drug targets the brain to give the taker feelings of pleasure similar to the effects of drinking. However, an antidote can block the sensations immediately, leaving the user free to drive or return to work.
"We know that the main target for alcohol in the brain is the neurotransmitter system gamma aminobutyric acid (Gaba), which keeps the brain calm," he wrote. "In theory we can make an alcohol surrogate that makes people feel relaxed and sociable and remove the unwanted effects, such as aggression and addictiveness."
Nutt said he's found "five such compounds" but need to do more test on them to see if people find them as pleasurable as alcohol.
"After exploring one possible compound I was quite relaxed and sleepily inebriated for an hour or so, then within minutes of taking the antidote I was up giving a lecture with no impairment whatsoever," he said.
He said he needs funding to do more tests.
Emily Robinson, the deputy chief executive of the charity Alcohol Concern, told the Epoch Times that Nutt's idea is unusual and a bit off.
"We would urge caution on this," she said. "We agree that alcohol is a serious burden to the country. But we would urge the Government to invest in policies that we know work, such as minimum unit pricing and advertising restrictions."
She said she believes the U.K. "should focus on what is going wrong in our drinking culture rather than swapping potentially one addictive substance for another."
