Real-Life Synthehol Will Get You Buzzed, But Never Drunk

[Ian David]

In the chronologically later Star Trek series, Starfleet officers rarely worried about overindulging thanks to synthehol, a substance that mimicked alcohol's effects without the drunkeness and hangovers. Now a team of researchers are working to make synthehol a reality.

Researchers at Imperial College London are working to create an alcohol-like drug that would let imbibers experience a pleasant state of inebriation without worrying about becoming drunk, hungover, or physically addicted to the substance. Led by controversial neuropsychopharmacologist David Nutt, the team is looking at benzodiazepines — such as the main ingredient in Valium — to achieve the desired effect. Nutt envisions a world where drinking is safer, with fewer of the accidents and incidents currently related to alcohol.

The advantages of benzodiazepines, according to Nutt, is that they don't affect the brain's addiction centers in the way alcohol does and that they can be easily purged from the body with an antidote. Effectively, if Nutt's research pans out, he claims that drinkers would be able to "switch off" the effects of the faux alcohol by ingesting a pill.

Nutt and his fellow researchers are currently trying to find the benzodiazepine that most closely mimics the effects of alcohol. However, he is concerned that — even if he is successful — European governments will refuse to permit the sale of benzodiazeprine "alcohol," since benzos don't enjoy the same privileged history that alcohol does.



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[Uben]

1. Hey dumbasses!

...just legalize pot and save your damned money!

[asthmaticeog]

3. Er, no. Sorry, hippie.

I don't trust a stoned person behind the wheel any more than a drunk. If pot had a neurochemical off-switch, your comparison might be more valid. Me, I love the idea of someone being able to go from goofy to cold sober at the drop of a hat. If that were commonplace, imagine how rare drunk driving casualties could become. I wish these researchers the best of fortunes! :toast:


I should edit to add: I fully support total pot legalization. But I don't buy that it's entirely "safe." It's still an intoxicant and it is proper to treat it as such.

[madokie]

7. In YOUR mind it is proper to treat it as such

not mine or many others. You are so ill informed I wouldn't know where to start so I'll leave that for someone else.
Have a great day though :-)

[vadawg]

9. dude try and drive whilst stoned and watch yourself in cuffs the same as if you were drunk

im sorry but driving stoned is just as dumb as driving drunk....

[EOTE]

10. Only stoned drivers are far more capable than drunk or tired drivers.

Hell, Top Gear even did a controlled test of drunk vs. stoned vs. sober vs. tired drivers and the stoned drivers came out well ahead of the others. Followed by sober, then drunk, then tired drivers. So really, driving stoned is nowhere near as dumb as driving drunk.

[vadawg]

12. yeah okay, as much as i love top gear stoned drivers are as much an ass as drunk

you dont really believe that the idiot stoned out of his box is capable of driving safely...

[EOTE]

15. Yes, yes I do.

And the only test and study I've seen that's bothered to compare the abilities of different drivers shows that is indeed the case. Not only of driving safely, but driving more safely than the control group. So why wouldn't I believe that?

[vadawg]

16. okay you continue to toke and drive and when you are pulled over you try telling the popo that

my experience of stoned drivers is that like alcohol they get to a level where they fail the sobriety test and get themselves arrested, its not to hard to discern people who are driving whilst impaired, usually following them for a mile or so is enough...

[EOTE]

17. OK. I'll continue to live my life as I have been for the past 15 years.

Not only have I passed sobriety tests while stoned, but I'm almost always at my best intellectually while stoned. I have no doubt that pot is magnitudes of order safer than alcohol.

[vadawg]

18. yup you continue doing what you are doing and if you should hit and kill someone

then you can no doubt justify driving stoned as it only makes you a better driver....

[EOTE]

19. And if you should hit and kill someone...

then you can no doubt justify driving while being an ass as it only makes you a better driver. Stupid is as stupid does.

[vadawg]

20. difference is i cant help being an ass, you can help driving stoned

though i think that pretty much guarentees that you are a bigger ass than me, though you have a choice...

[EOTE]

21. And you have a choice as to whether or not you drive under the influence of caffeine.

Somehow I guess you've chosen to do so before. I'm guessing you've driven under the influence of burgers and fries too. What, exactly, is your point? If it doesn't negatively effect your driving performance, what difference does it make? Just because you have a vendetta against something doesn't automatically make it bad. Frankly, I'm sick of all the bullshit disinformation being thrown about regarding marijuana.

[EOTE]

22. And, and btw, anyone can decide whether or not they wish to be an ass. NT

[Toasterlad]

31. Zing!

[RumJungle]

39. LOL...

I'm sure you are at your best intellectually when stoned!!!!!!! Or maybe you just think you are!!!!!!!!

[EOTE]

42. I breezed through HS stoned. College wasn't much different.

I now have a high paying job in IT that never requires drug testing and I have the luxury of turning down jobs that do. My friends still seem to enjoy my company when I'm stoned and have done quite a bit of writing under the influence. And I also manage to avoid using superfluous exclamation points for the most part when I'm stoned, so I'd say I'm doing alright. I suppose booze is more your drug of choice, get as wasted as you want. I can tell you that I've taken the Stanford-Binet IQ test when stoned and I registered 2 points higher than my previous attempt. So yes, I'm fairly sure that pot has not had any negative effect on me intellectually.

[madokie]

24. you ain't got a clue

I hate to tell you that but its true.

[dysfunctional press]

36. you obviously don't have a whole lot of experience with pot, do you...?

:shrug:

[vadawg]

38. yup i actually do, from both sides, and i always hear the same excuse from impaired drivers

regardless of what they are on, its always having a buzz makes me a better driver and its always bullshit...

[dysfunctional press]

40. i certainly wouldn't say it makes me a 'better' driver...

but it doesn't impair my driving, either.
and i'd probably be classified as a 'heavy user'.
i've been smoking it for 30 years- with one 6-month respite due to a relationship with the wrong kind of woman in my mid-20's.
i smoke about an ounce/week, and when i leave the house to drive somewhere, the last things i grab on my way out the door are my keys and my pipe(or a joint or two),
and i've never been pulled over or had an accident due to pot-smoking. :shrug:
the 'buzz' just doesn't compromise a person's motor(or motoring) skills the way that alcohol does.

[EOTE]

44. Hehehehe, "wrong kind of woman".

I too had a 6 month relationship with the "wrong kind of woman" in my mid 20s. Actually, she was really a sweetie, but she had a problem with the herb. I stopped toking because she didn't like it and she was on her way to becoming an English Professor and she was spiteful of her peers who would use bud as a way of getting their creative juices flowing. I believe she never so much as tried it, I'd like to believe she'd think differently if she gave it a try, but I didn't push it. Funny what we'll do for love, eh?

And yes, I'd say smoking an O a week would classify you as a heavy user :smoke:

[CTyankee]

29. I can see why the UK would do this and why it will get acceptance here in the U.S.

Personally, I agree with the Europeans. I think it is as a result of our incredibly (and the UK's) screwed up concept of drinking alcohol. If we treated wine like the Italians do, for instance, there would be no need for this fake stuff.

Good wine and food, taken together, is one of the biggest joys of my life. I just wish Americans could find a happy medium between complete abstinence and drunkenness.

I don't disagree with you that we should take steps to keep drunks or other high people off the road. I am just sad that our culture can't understand alcohol the way the Europeans do (or at least the French, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese and Greeks).

[asthmaticeog]

30. Nicely put.

:thumbsup:

[depakid]

2. And as an added bonus- with benzo intoxication:

you won't remember a single embarrassing thing that you did!

[madokie]

25. Have you ever had a benzo hangover

I'll take whisky first on that one. I can puke drink and eat and be fine in a couple hours but benzo's take a day or two to get over.

[timeforpeace]

37. Benzodiazepines in place of alcohol is like a .45 in place of a face slap. Stupid "research".

[madokie]

41. Yeah I agree

I've been taking a benzo for anxiety for a couple months now and I can tell you right up they suck. Back when I was boozing it up chasing tail and all those kinds of fun things I liked a valium or a xanax from time to time and didn't realize the hangover was as much from them as it was the booze. I don't get booze hangovers any more so I notice the benzo hangovers now. Stupid research but I'm glad someone is doing it as I like the idea of a no stone left unturned theory

[unpossibles]

4. I'm not sure how many drinkers would not want to get drunk

I actually tend to prefer to drink in moderation to the point of being buzzed, but a lot of drinkers I know set out to get pretty blotto, so this won't really appeal to them, right?

[vadawg]

5. no they can still get blottod hopefully, but then you pop the pill and voila instant sobriety

this would be a very cool product if they could get it to market.. means you could spend time at the inlaws totally out of it, stagger to your car, pop the pill and be able to drive home....

[kedrys]

6. I got news for you, scientist guy

There is an antidote to alcohol - adrenaline! Next time you get pulled over by a cop for speeding after a 30-block chase, by the time the officer walks up to your window and asks everybody for their papers, you'll be stone cold sober. :rofl:

[vadawg]

8. rofl, funny but i got to dispute it, ive never came across a drunk who sobered after the chase

unless i didnt know they were drunk during it hmmmmmm interesting...

[kedrys]

11. To be fair, after the officer dismissed us with a warning

and we had a chance to sit for a couple of minutes to, er, reflect on the event, we were as torched as before we got pulled over. The "drunk" just washed back over us. :P

The circumstances were this: four of us in a slightly souped-up car peeled around the corner leaving the theatre, and the officer was standing there talking to some other officers. He felt he needed to give chase before his colleagues made fun of him (he told us all this, we had no idea), and he basically followed us for about 30 blocks, including making us get off the freeway to reprimand us. We were going the legal speed limit or under the whole time.

Our only saving grace, aside from being shocked into acting sober, was that there were four of us and one of him, and he didn't see the point in giving us a ticket, wasting a day in court, having four ostensibly sober people gainsay him and see the charges dropped (he also told us this).

All in all, a hilarious experience because it turned out in our favour, but the officer was unfailingly professional throughout even though we got his goat by tearing around a corner in front of him. :rofl:

[Obamanaut]

23. I don't think you are allowed to say this here -

"...the officer was unfailingly professional throughout..."

I have seen this myself many times, but it isn't allowed here, even though true.

[Ian David]

13. My daughter's next School Science Fair project;

Can administering an injection of adrenalin help someone pass a field-sobriety test.

Maybe Mythbusters can do this?

[kedrys]

14. ROFL!

Adam would totally do it, and Jamie would audibly roll his eyes for an hour. :rofl:

[clear eye]

26. This researcher is either lying or an idiot.

Benzodiazepines are about the most addictive substances ever. They may not have the intense effects of alcohol or opiates, but people rapidly develop tolerances and need more and more just to stay normal, and not get jittery, anxious withdrawal symptoms.

That's why it's rarely used in psychiatric treatment anymore except as prns for panic attacks, and even only then after careful screening of the patient for substance abuse tendencies.

[Ian David]

27. Maybe he's just using this as an excuse to experiment on himself? n/t

[clear eye]

28. And get grant money.

As I said, "lying".

Even a brief plain Google search (not Google scholar) will show all the worthy sites saying that the effects of benzodiazepams include binding to the same pleasure centers as other addictive substances do. This is a hoax.

[TheKentuckian]

32. Pass, but if you get some real life Romulan ale then hit me up please

[jmowreader]

33. Very, very bad idea (part 1 of 2)

I'm splitting this in half because Synthehol, or the notion that someone might think to sell something this stupid, has two issues of concern. Both are equally important, so I don't want to put one below the other in the same message.

Synergy: the state in which the effects of two drugs mixed together exceeds that of either drug separately. Think "two plus two equals five" and you're on the right track, except two plus two might also equal nineteen. Depends on the drug. Synergy killed John Belushi: the dose of cocaine he consumed was probably not enough to kill him--he was a large man who did a lot of drugs, so he had tolerance. Same with the dose of heroin. But mixed together into a Speedball, the combination did him in.

Combining alcohol with benzodiazepine has a similar effect. Some people are thinking, "what the fuck are you talking about? This is supposed to replace alcohol!" Never been to a bar, I see. Go in one and start drinking beer. All of a sudden some of your buddies show up. "Hey! Let's do a shot of tequila!" Next thing you know there are eight different kinds of liquor in your system and you're having a talk with Ralph the Toilet King. Right now the primary drug you can get at a bar is ethanol. Throw drunk assholes and benzodiazepines into the same room, and you're going to wind up with DEAD assholes.

[jmowreader]

34. Very, very bad idea (part 2 and final)

Benzodiazepines are major drugs of abuse--pharmacist Jon Johnson (http://www.sli.org/services/articles/pdfs/LN_tenmostabused.pdf) lists the top ten abused prescription drugs as:

Hydrocodone--an opiate
Oxycodone--an opiate
Codeine--an opiate
Xanax--a benzo
Valium--a benzo
Methadone--an opiate
Ativan--a benzo
Darvocet--an opiate
Restoril--a benzo
Librium--a benzo

Add to that Rohypnol, the most infamous of all benzos.

The biggest catch: You cannot differentiate between two benzos on any drug test. Not with dipstick testing, not with EMIT assays and not even with the "gold standard" GC/MS system. Dopers are smart. If synthehol hits the street, no doper will use any of the common drugs of abuse like pot anymore. They'll use benzos instead--why not? You won't be able to test for them anymore because the first thing the guy will say is "I drink synthehol." And there won't be a fucking thing we can do about it.

The Holy Grail of inebriation is a product that will get you stewed without any of the bad effects alcohol has. This ain't it.

[RedCappedBandit]

35. Since when are benzos safe?

[sendero]

43. benzos..

.. are among the most addictive substances out there. they are among the most difficult to get away from. this is common knowledge. these folks are nuts.