Scientists Are Developing a Pill That Can Get You Drunk Without Any Alcohol

Here’s the name you want to know: Professor Nutt.

If you haven’t heard of Dr. David Nutt before, he used to be the chair of Britain’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Then he went and took this controversial stance on substance usage, and got fired.

Now, Nutt is a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London. He and his team are completely revolutionizing our relationship with alcohol. Think: the alcohol version of smoking’s e-cigarettes.

Thanks to him, there’s a drug in development that mimics the sensation produced by alcohol without the health risks. There’s two: alcosynth and chaperone.

So if your morning after is normally like this:

These drugs will make it more like this:

Let me break it down for you.

Alcosynth is a pill that can act as an alcohol substitute. It gives you all the fun parts of drinking without any of the bad parts.

That means your tipsy, flirty, confident self is in.

Your agressive, addictive, liver-failing self is out. 

Chaperone is a pill for when you actually do drink alcohol. Called the “sober-up” pill, it does exactly that: lessens the effects of alcohol. Think: cute/tipsy, not drunk/trashy.

Nutt envisions these drugs to be classy alternatives to alcohol. Because let’s face it, sober you would not describe intoxicated you as “responsible.”

So, where can I get this stuff?

Both drugs are in very early stages of development—funding hasn’t yet been provided for the project. The only way they’re going to get fully researched and developed will be if there’s enough funding to test them and put them on the market. So let’s pray we make it through our hangovers  in the mean time.

Until then, stick with these booze hacks:

• Why Drinking Beer is Good for Your Brain
• What to Eat to Prevent a Hangover
• Strangest Hangover Cures from around the World