how fucking boring. i was hoping for a real advance in pharmacology.It reverses the effects of benzodiazepines by competitive inhibition at the benzodiazepine binding site on the GABAA receptor.
Bluelight
how fucking boring. i was hoping for a real advance in pharmacology.It reverses the effects of benzodiazepines by competitive inhibition at the benzodiazepine binding site on the GABAA receptor.
^ We agree again.
If mr. Nutt is suggesting to us that we can use his neo-alcohol and then take flumazenil before driving and be perfectly happy and safe, well I can only laugh...
Flumazenil is no joke.
This is like saying, "hai look heear. I make a opiate you can use happy, then just take naloxone when u wanna drive sage, I mean safe!"
Maybe i'm being cynical, but I half expect Professor Nutt will be discredited again... (I can see the headlines: Nutty Professor Pushes Pills)
The alcohol industry has far too much to lose - unless, of course, they get behind it. Surely this would be the most logical course for them.
i can't imagine a bar full of people sipping solutions of benzos...
wouldn't even be fun.
I don't think he's suggesting that the Flumazenil will be available to the public to take after their night out. I'd say it's more when people turn up at the hospital, like thousands do all over the UK every weekend, fucked off their nuts on Ethanol close to overdose, that they will be able to administer it to them via a continuous I.V. solution and practically bring them out of their intoxicated stupor instantaneously (like they do with Opiate OD's).Originally Posted by Jamshyd
That was the impression I got from the Documentary I watched with him testing it on the presenter (a drug abuse psychologist). It was called "Do I drink too much" if it's not already been mentioned.
I notice that he failed to mention the many proven good effects of some kinds of alcohol, such as the cholesterol-reducing properties of red wine.
I would rather drink good ol' red wine than take some synthetic benzo that has side-effects that we haven't discovered yet.
This seems dumb to me, there are already shitloads of sedatives that are safer than alcohol. What makes this one so special? The "antidote"? I'm sure they have that for a number of already existing sedatives, could be wrong though...
I agree dumb to me to can't money on research be spent elsewhere>>>>>>??
Any current sedative drug will have some sort of stigma attached to it.
If you come up with a "completely new compound", the gov. will think it's been designed for this purpose only. Meaning it's more likely to get funding (which it has) and is more likely to be considered by the drugs council (which is probably unlikely).
I would sure hope his idea isn't to have the bartender giving out flumazenil to people so they can drive. Anyone addicted to benzodiazepines receiving a drug to instantly knock all the benzos / related compounds off the receptors, sounds like a recipe for seizures imo.I don't think he's suggesting that the Flumazenil will be available to the public to take after their night out.
On the article, while it'll be nifty to see what mr nutt comes up with....i have a hard time believing it'll get anywhere.
Exactly man. I doubt it would be legal to do so anyway.
And I too have a hard time thinking that it will get much further than these experiments and the latter report (which will be ignored most likely).
that's not the effects of alcohol but of polyphenoles and other compounds contained in grapes. you can have the same cholesterol-reducing properties but drinking grape juice.
I can scarely believe this is serious. Even if this drug is not as toxic as alcohol, there will still be negative effects. The less negative effects there are, the more easy it will be to become addicted. Imagine when an alcoholic finds there is a drug which can give him the high of alcohol but with much less of the negatives? He is just going to use it that much more often. Then when tolerance gets to be too much of a problem, he will switch back to alcohol. Of course there might be some people who stop using alcohol in favor of this but assuming it will totally replace alcohol and be used in the exact same way, is ridiculous in my opinion.
You can't replace alcohol for a benzo, it's just different.
I love how people forget to mention that the antidote causes seizures in higher doses and has a very small therapeutic window.
He's looked into a handful of BZD receptor partial agonists. No GHB analogues. that's silly. Not readily reversible either.
I assume it's something like bretazanil or pagoclone, but there are lots of others.
It's actually a brilliant idea.
And on the matter of other alcohols. They're generally less toxic. Short chain <8 carbon, non-branched simple alcohols are generally less toxic than ethanol and significantly more potent. N-pentanol is about 3-4x more potent than ethanol.
05-01-2010 11:48
Alcohol Substitute
That Avoids Drunkenness
& Hangovers In Development
By Paul Rodgers and Richard Alleyne
Telegraph.co.uk
26 Dec 2009
An alcohol substitute that mimics its pleasant buzz without leading to drunkenness and hangovers is being developed by scientists.
The new substance could have the added bonus of being "switched off" instantaneously with a pill, to allow drinkers to drive home or return to work.
The synthetic alcohol, being developed from chemicals related to Valium, works like alcohol on nerves in the brain that provide a feeling of wellbeing and relaxation.
But unlike alcohol its does not affect other parts of the brain that control mood swings and lead to addiction. It is also much easier to flush out of the body.
Finally because it is much more focused in its effects, it can also be switched off with an antidote, leaving the drinker immediately sober.
The new alcohol is being developed by a team at Imperial College London, led by Professor David Nutt,
Britain's top drugs expert who was recently sacked as a government adviser for his comments about cannabis and ecstasy.
He envisions a world in which people could drink without getting drunk, he said.
No matter how many glasses they had, they would remain in that pleasant state of mild inebriation and at the end of an evening out,
revellers could pop a sober-up pill that would let them drive home.
Prof Nutt and his team are concentrating their efforts on benzodiazepines, of which diazepam, the chief ingredient of Valium is one.
Thousands of candidate benzos are already known to science. He said it is just a matter of identifying the closest match and then, if necessary, tailoring it to fit society’s needs.
Ideally, like alcohol, it should be tasteless and colourless, leaving those characteristics to the drink it’s in.
Eventually it would be used to replace the alcohol content in beer, wine and spirits and the recovered ethanol (the chemical name for alcohol) could be sold as fuel.
Professor Nutt believes that the new drug, which would need licensing, could have a dramatic effect on society and improve the nation's health.
The NHS report Statistics on Alcohol: England, 2009 found more than 800,000 alcohol-related admissions to hospitals in 2007-08
– and more than 6,500 deaths – at a cost to the service of £2.7bn a year.
Some charities estimate that the toll could be up to five times higher. Drink is, for example, a factor in 40 per cent of fatal fires, 15 per cent of drownings,
65 per cent of suicides and 40 per cent of domestic abuse. It also has other costs, including 17 million lost working days a year, worth about £20bn to the economy.
“I’ve been in experiments where I’ve taken benzos,” said Professor Nutt. “One minute I was sedated and nearly asleep, five minutes later I was giving a lecture.
“No one’s ever tried targeting this before, possibly because it will be so hard to get it past the regulators.
“Most of the benzos are controlled under the Medicines Act. The law gives a privileged position to alcohol, which has been around for 3,000 years.
But why not use advances in pharmacology to find something safer and better?”
Getting the drug approved could be hard for the team as clinical trials are expensive, and it is not clear who would pay for them, according to Professor Nutt.
He said that the traditional drinks industry has not shown any interest, however some countries might be persuaded to sponsor the team.
Some countries have more liberal regimes than others, though, and Professor Nutt thinks Greece or Spain, within the EU, could lead the way.
The latest Home Office performance figures showed that more than one in four people believe that alcohol is blighting their community.
A survey of every police force area in England and Wales found that 26 per cent of those polled “perceived people being drunk or rowdy in public placed to be a problem in their area”
– a slight increase from last year.
The fears over the affects of alcohol range from urban to rural communities, with the worst hit being Manchester, South Wales, London, Northumbria and Gwent.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/he...velopment.html
Im curious just exactly what this substitue alcohol will be.. They say its related to diazepam (valium) so im wondering how they are going to get this to be approved if its related to benzos??
Wait, so they're trying to make benzo-like substances mainstream, but other drugs are still *evil* ?
never going to happen.. just won't.. alcohol and the like are far too engraved in the American (among countless other countries/culture).. plus the government and basically EVERYTHING is somehow connected to money involving alcohol in some shape or another..
for fucks sake.. our country is just NOW "slowly" starting to come around about a much less harmful drug, marijuana.. but yet thousands die every year involving alcohol..
it all comes down to money.. and it just will never happen..
if this happens, will I have to go to my doctor to get a schedule III prescription before going to the bar?..
just a few crazy thoughts to throw out there..
why would you want alcohol that doesn't get you drunk? that is why i drink liquor.
Since when is ethanol tasteless? It tastes like shit, imho.Ideally, like alcohol, it should be tasteless and colourless, leaving those characteristics to the drink it’s in.
Alcohol substitute huh, well lets just see where this goes in the near future especially if it's related to benzo's. Seems pretty out there I don't think it'll go to far most people drink TO get drunk so I don't know how folks will react to this.
Sounds stupid to me, though I also can see what is attractive about it.
I would rather stick with good old alcohol, which has thousands of years of history behind it, than a drug that may or may not fuck up your brain in ways that we might not know about for a decade or more. (Then again, I am not addicted to alcohol...)
