http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04...replace_booze/

--> Sinister moves are afoot to replace old faithful ethanol
--> with a cocktail of drugs engineered to mimic its effects.
--> Bristol professor David Nutt reckons chemicals called
--> partial agonists offer a turn off the Yellow Puke Road and
--> into beerless drugtopia.
-->
--> He claims: "The benefits to society could be so
--> profound."
-->
--> The technology, mooted in The Journal of Psychopharmacology,
--> hijacks receptors in the brain called GABA-As. These

Not gabba-gabba-As?

--> signallers are associated with the positive effects of drink
--> like confidence, openness and inflated sense of one's own
--> attractiveness. Some of the many subtypes are responsible
--> for less desirable behaviours; falling over, aggression,
--> karaoke.
-->
--> Nutt's plan is to target only the benefits with a potent mix
--> of partial agonists that wouldn't press the negative
--> buttons. What's more, the drunkard's compulsory attempt at
--> sobering up by chomping spoonfuls of dry Gold Blend would be
--> replaced by a hit of an instant antidote drug called
--> flumazenil.
-->
--> While liver failure admissions to casualty would doubtless
--> plummet, surely such a endless, risk free intoxication is
--> the greatest threat to civilisation since bird flu.
--> Drugged-up worker's productivity would crash, roads would be
--> chaos, gangs of jobless landlords would maraud through
--> Britain's fine market towns.
-->
--> Perhaps more importantly, the universal Yin Yang of pleasure
--> pain would be subverted if a night on the tiles wasn't
--> followed by a morning on the toilet.