In a 1992 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), the starship Entreprise-D comes across the wreck of a Federation transport vessel. Caught in the buffer of the 75-year-old wreck’s transporter, Commander Geordi La Forge discovers Montgomery Scott (Scotty), Geordi’s counterpart from the original Star Trek series and a previous incarnation of the Enterprise.
During a tour of 10-Forward, the new Enterprise’s bar, Scotty—being a stereotypical Scotsman even many decades after humanity had moved beyond nationalism—is appalled that real beverage alcohol has been replaced by “synthehol.” Data, the intrepid Star Trek: TNG Spock surrogate android, explains the drug has the same pleasant effects as alcohol without any of the deleterious results and that the intoxication can be easily “dismissed” (presumably with some kind of futuristic antidote) if an officer must return to duty.
That utopian future—the ability to get trashed, wake up the next day without a hangover and not die young of alcohol-induced cirrhosis of the liver or heart disease—is now being heralded as just around the corner.
David Nutt, a British neuropsychopharmacologist (yes that’s a real thing) claims he has patented a substance that does precisely what Star Trek: TNG’s synthehol does, except he is calling it alcosynth.
It works, he explains by targeting the parts of the brain in which the pleasant effects of regular old C2H6O are created without affecting the parts of the brain that result in dry mouth, nausea and that general feeling of crappiness known as a hangover.
Furthermore, he says that by using “clever pharmacology” he can limit the effects. So far, he claims testing indicates after three or four drinks, you do not get any more intoxicated if you continue to drink, which in turn discourages you from continuing to drink.
“You’ll get pleasantly intoxicated but you won’t get blind drunk,” he claims. “You can’t kill yourself on it, you won’t get aggressive, you won’t get dependent and you won’t get a hangover.”
That, along with other claims he is making, such as regular alcohol being a thing of the past by 2050, are quite extraordinary indeed.
It almost sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? And you know what they say about things that sound too good to be true.
Of course, Nutt has a massive stake in replacing good old ethanol with his substitute, so he might be forgiven for overselling.
He might be, but not by me.
I’m just not buying it. The science may well be sound, but we are dealing with human nature here.
In the first place, the claims about alcosynth making regular alcohol obsolete presume everyone drinks for one reason and that reason is to get drunk.
There are, certainly, many addicts out there, but practically speaking, making bold statements about alcosynth’s non-addictive properties is reminiscent of Bayer marketing heroin as a non-addictive substitute for morphine.
Frankly, if Nutt truly believes his own hype, he just does not understand drinkers of any kind.
Let’s deal with the addicts first, though. If the effects of alcosynth do indeed plateau, for example, a true alcoholic would quickly be reaching for the real stuff again. And, we currently know nothing of the potential interactions between the two and between alcosynth and other drugs, which is important because human nature dictates they will be mixed.
Nevertheless, if it truly does not cause cirrhosis, heart disease and other beverage alcohol problems, there is perhaps utility for it in the treatment of alcoholism.
Methadone, for example has proved to have some success in weaning people off other opioids. In that case, even if people get addicted to the methadone, the key is harm reduction, which could also be an argument for alcosynth.
Speaking of harm reduction, what about the harm to society? Does alcosynth also prevent people from driving under the influence, having affairs and abusing their families? Despite Nutt’s assurances, there are numerous unknown factors of long-term alcosynth use. I suspect there will be problems.
As for the beverage alcohol obituary Nutt is trying to write, he is simply dreaming. His biggest obstacle is non-alcoholics. Studies show that only about 10 per cent of drinkers are full-blown alcoholics or weekend bingers.
Even if that number is slightly off due to dishonest reporting or statistical error, the large majority of people who consume alcoholic beverages already do so without the deleterious effects (the most effective way of preventing a hangover is not to drink too much).
For non-alcoholics there is more to the alcoholic beverage experience than getting drunk, or even tipsy, and those are things alcosynth will not be able to offer. You cannot replace a fine wine or well-crafted beer or painstakingly distilled liquor in which beverage alcohol resulting from natural fermentation is part and parcel of the character of the thing.
Scotty, for one, would never abide it. And fortunately for him, plenty of people on the Enterprise-D had personal stashes of real beverage alcohol. If there is a place for alcosynth in our actual future it will be as in Star Trek’s imagined future, alongside real alcohol not as a replacement.
To abuse another cultural analogy, video did not actually kill the radio star.
