Scientists mix perfect cocktail that won't leave you hungover

It could be the perfect tipple: a drink that makes you merry without turning you into a slurring, stumbling liability on course for the mother of all hangovers.

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 our 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% and 4%. The most popular drinks are now in the 5% to 5.5% range and some strong lagers are up to 8% 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 magazine, 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 that 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."

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