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Star Trek's Synthehol Now Possible?
[TheBORG] writes "Professor David Nutt, a psychopharmacologist at the University of Bristol in the UK, believes that there is no scientific reason why 'synthehol' (a science-fictional substitute for alcohol that appears in Star Trek:The Next Generation television series) cannot be created now. It will allow drinkers to experience all of the enjoyable, intoxicating effects of alcohol without unpleasant side-effects like hangovers." Of course, there's still the real deal, Romulan Ale, for when you want a splitting headache in the morning.
Synthehol is my anti-drug.
Actually Sinthehole just had the taste and none of the side-effects (like feeling happy, having impaired judgement, etc).
I didn't make my career trusting scientists with names like "Professor Nutt." And for the record, the only thing more pointless than reading articles about things that "should" "theoretically" be "possible" is writing them.
Limina.Log
Romulan Ale is okay, but real life forms prefer the Pan Galactic Gargleblaster, for when you want to feel like you have had your head smashed in by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.
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It seems to me sometimes that we focus more on trying to make the 'cool' tech and gadgets from the tv shows of our childhood than making new innovations sometimes. I wonder if it actually inhibits science to try and make it fit to fiction, or whether fiction really is the best inspiration.
On the other hand, I really, really want my own replicator.
The future of alcoholism just got brighter.
Now if only they could get rid of the part of alcohol that makes people act like assholes.
"There's companies that are just so cool that you just can't even deal with it," - Bill Gates, about Google
Speaking from the perspective of an American College student whom is reasonabally responsible. DO NOT REMOVE THE HANGOVER! I can only imagine how little work I would get done, and how many more students would fail out of college. There needs to be a bit of punishment, or else mass irresponisbilty would follow.
Walk with me or walk behind.
Sorry if I seem a tad against the idea... but I think alchohol is a waste of time and money that could better be used to improve oneself and the society in which they live.
The same could be said about Slashdot but you still post in here.
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
It's hard enough to get the much less addictive and less harmfull drugs like Marijuana that people have used for thousands of years to be legal. Making some new alcohol like substance legal as a recreational drug would be near impossible.
Really, if alcohol didn't have the added guise of also being a food, and being impossibly easy to create on your own it'd be illegal now.
AccountKiller
I hear that alcohol leads to close dancing and jazz music. Clearly it should be banned.
English is easier said than done.
The authorities have already lost the plot in the war on drugs. What with meth anphetamine, ecstacy, LSD and any number of other lab created drugs out there, do you really think that any government is going to allow another synthetically produced substance that alters your mood in any way whatsoever? The moment it happens the meddlers and self-appointed moral guardians that prescribe what is and isn't good for us, would be calling for a ban.
...and it's called pot.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
We can also thank our anti-drug culture the practice of adding things such as acetaminophen to opiates (e.g., vicodin and oxycodone) to make sure it destroys your liver if you become addicted (as a "deterrent"). Given this, I don't think the government, or whoever decides such things, would be terribly pleased with a readily available drug with the "positive" effects of alcohol and none of the negative effects. If this really shows up, don't be surprised if it is simply labelled a "designer" drug and made highly illegal.
Actually there is a very good substitute for alcohol, gamma-hydroxybutyrate (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ghb/). It is toxic at high dose (and mixed with alcohol), but at normal levels it feels the same as alcohol and is much healthier and without the hangover effect...
If the inventors would like to send me a few kegs, I will consume them. Purely in the name of science, of course.
Four roommates. No microwave. You do the math.
Duh!
Plus of course regular heavy use may bring on the more feared long term addiction to tie dyed clothing, Grateful Dead, and believing one to be living in California in the late 1960s...
#1 Prospective cohort study of cannabis use, predisposition for psychosis, and psychotic symptoms in young people, by Cécile Henquet, Lydia Krabbendam, Janneke Spauwen, Charles Kaplan, Roselind Lieb, Hans-Ulrich Wittchen and Jim van Os, British Medical Journal, December 2004, Volume 330: 11
#2 Cannabis use and mental health in young people: cohort study, by G C Patton, Carolyn Coffey, J B Carlin, Louisa Degenhardt, Micheal Lynskey and Wayne Hall, British Medical Journal, 2005, Volume 325: 1195
(rant) Meth, tobacco, alcohol, and perhaps PCP are the worst popular drugs, in terms of bodily harm. People do fucked up things when they're addicted to heroin, etc, but the drug itself is not that bad for you. From Wikipedia: ... "Francis L. Young, an administrative law judge with the Drug Enforcement Agency, has declared that in its natural form, (cannabis) is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known." Whereas tobacco is the biggest easily preventable cause of death/bodily harm out there, with alcohol not too far behind. Its about protecting the interests of big tobacco and alcohol, not about the safety of people or even cost to society in terms of medical expenses, etc. Plus this way the politicians get to seem "pro-family" in their strong stance against "dangerous drugs". In this context, would it really be possible for some new drug to be allowed, even if it removes some of the negative consequences of alcohol (see GHB, benzodiazapenes, etc. etc.) (/rant)
...but I had lectures from him and he's really rather good and certainly knows his stuff. If you want to knock him for his name then fine.
A psychopharmacologist is interested in why and how chemicals interact with the brain and nervous system, so it's quite within his mandate to speculate on how something like 'synthehol' should theoretically be possible. Invariably you tend to find that postgraduates in the UK have to write papers on how something is theoretically possible in order to attract funding for research.
These papers are in the public domain, so if some Sci-Fi fan for LiveScience breaks the news with the sensationalist title "Hangover-free Buzz: Star Trek's Synthehol Now Possible" while at the same time quoting passages from the paper like "Some "partial agonists" of GABA-A receptors already exist; bretazenil and pagoclone were developed as anti-anxiety drugs. These drug molecules are instantly reversible by the flumazenil, used as an antidote to overdoses of tranquillisers.", I'd wager that you should be shooting the messenger here, not the scientist.
The same could be said about Slashdot but you still post in here.
Only when I'm drunk!
>> Now, be honest, do you really drink for the taste? If someone suggested fruit juice instead of wine what would you think?
Yes, I do. I quite enjoy scotch, but rarely have more than one or two a week... I do drink it purely for the taste (one drink is hardly enough to get a buzz, let alone get drunk). When I drink beer, I also rarely have more than one. As difficult as this may seem to you, it's fairly normal with most people I know. My generation (born in early 70's if you ask) doesn't seem to have the "drink a few every night after work" mentality that our parents did. Maybe I live in an exceptional microcosm... who knows.
As for fruit juice... I don't particularly like the taste, sorry. If it were as complex and enjoyable as Oban or Lagavulin, maybe I'd buy it by the gallon.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
We human beings need stress reduction. Many of us choose to drink a moderate amount to do so.
And there are also those of us who never use it for stress reduction, but do use it to celebrate! I like a quote I heard from a pastor one day "Jesus turned water into wine, and evangelical christians have been trying to turn it back ever since"
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Those studies were a pile of crap, none of the participants were screened for psychosis before they started smoking, which leads to the inevitable question, would someone who is bordering psychosis possibly self medicate with marijuana? Correlation != Causation.
They're pretty much both anti MJ propaganda pulled out by people who were against the reclassification of marijuana in britain. Strange how they suddenly got done right around when the reclassification became news.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
I'm going to say this: Nutt's drug would send civilisation down the tubes faster than you can imagine. Why? Because at the moment anybody who is at the bottom of the heap will often try to forget their misery with drugs. The drugs cause vast social damage and cost, encouraging crime. As a result, society is aware of the problems and has to take steps to address them - often unsuccessfully because neocons and "libertarians" (sociopaths) will attribute any cause to social problems other than ones that might require them to change their behavior. But even just locking up two million people costs them tax dollars.
Now imagine a drug as described. Fine for well adjusted middle and upper class individuals. But the poor and the maltreated will take it to forget their problems, and because there won't be any resulting social costs they will just be forgotten about. Right up until the infrastructure stops working. Or the rich start dying of the diseases being spread around by the poor drug users who don't care.
Marx described religion as the opiate of the masses, i.e. it was used to keep them quiet and obedient. This drug really would be the opiate of the masses. The problem is that most of us identify with the rulers not the masses (especially when we are young and think life is easy.) But, in reality, most of us fall into the classes decribes by Marx as the "masses." Bear that in mind.
Pining for the fjords
In Soviet Russia, the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster beats YOU!
No wait. It does that everywhere.
Witty but useless comment defeated! Argh!
"...experience all of the enjoyable, intoxicating effects of alcohol without unpleasant side-effects..."
Funny thing here. For me alcohol is a flavour and texture component of my favorite drinks. The volatility and solvent properties of ethanol make most alcoholic drinks impossible to fake--dealcoholized wines are wretched, non-alcoholic beer if carefully done can rise to the level of almost mediocre, and dealcoholized hard liquor is an oxymoron.
For me and many others, the "enjoyable" effects are not the "intoxicating" effects, and in fact the latter often fall under the category of "unpleasant side-effects."
This is just another drug to get stoned on. Big deal. Personally, I'd stick to mushrooms.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Health risk of an opiate NEGLIGIBLE?? Hello, anybody home? I've smoked plenty of opium, let me tell you that you're dead wrong. A few things I've learned from personal experience...
1. Opiates constipate you (Immodium AD, loperamide, is an opiate)
2. Smoking opium is harsher on the lungs than marijuana.
3. Opium is far, FAR more addictive than alcohol (witness China and Turkey with their opium wars way back in history)
4. Once hooked to strong opiates, the general recourse to getting off of them is an even worse medication (methadone) as opposed to counseling and Antabuse prescriptions for alcohol addiction.
5. Opium can and will kill you, or get you killed.
6. Opium screws with your system more than alcohol. The only reasons more die from alcohol than opium are embarassingly simple - Alcohol's far easier to obtain, it's legal, and people get really stupid off of it, and therefore do stupid things.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Every good inventor has had to have some kind of inspiration to actually make the invention. Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention — the inventor needs a particular device or effect, so he creates it — but sometimes they don't realize there is a need, or they don't have a basis to work from. Some brilliant researcher could be looking at the paper, smacking his forehead and crying "Now why didn't I think of that?" and proceed to apply his research in anti-anxiety drugs to create alcohol without negative effects. Sure, it's the end result guy who gets the patent (or, if the first guy is clever enough to pull off a very general patent, he may get it), but it was the inspiration of the person who posted the theoretical idea that got things off of the ground.
Heck, you see it all the time in programming. Someone points out a theoretical vulnerability in an encryption algorithm and next you know, someone's posted a practical implementation. Personally, I wonder if the original poster was trying to avoid DMCA lawsuits by getting someone else to be their catspaw, but the idea is there.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
...a bunch of drunk people running around with phasers shouting "Make it so!"
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Robert: "Your synthehol...never leaves you out of control, isn't that so?"
Picard: "That is so."
Robert: "This will. Now there's something I'd like to see."
Picard: "What's that?"
Robert: "I venture you've probably never been drunk in your entire life."
The episode you're remembering is Relics. Data does claim that synthehol, "simulates the appearance, smell, and taste of alcohol, but the intoxicating effects can be easily dismissed." I suppose you could interpret "easily dismissed" as "easily shaken off" but given the evidence from other episodes, I interpret it as him saying that the intoxicating effects are so low that they can be dismissed as inexistent.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
You have to compare what you're buying. Romulan Ale is illeagle, hence you almost always have to pay extra "black market" fees. On the other hand, the PGG requires water from one particular planet, so the price goes up in proportion to the distance from said planet. Then, of course there is the price difference between mixed drinks (PGG) and straight drinks (Romulan Ale). This all varies depending on which part of the Galaxy you're in.
He effected a bored affect.
Even if they can find away not to trigger the physical craving response by some subtle manipulation of the molecules, how can they remove the powerful psychological urge?
If you take GHB, it removes the physical urge to drink alcohol. It also makes you happier. Overall, the psychological urge to drink is greatly diminished. In fact, US Patent 6,436,998 covers GHB as an alcoholism treatment.
For the sake of comparison, how badly did you want to get drunk the last time you exercised? If you've never felt GHB, it is like a five mile run in a bottle.