If you enjoy drinking, you should be against the development of hangover-free alcohol

Anyone who has shuffled into work on the run-up to Christmas carrying a Pret almond croissant, a cold can of restorative Coca-Cola and a dozen Nurofen Extra might be happy to hear that Professor David Nutt has predicted the end of hangovers.

Within one generation, Nutt, a former government drugs advisor who teaches at Imperial College, envisages the age of the “alcosynth”. This delicious-sounding synthetic concoction will mimic all the popular, boozy, slurry, flirty, “Aren’t I hilarious?” effects of alcohol – but without the sickness and throbbing headaches the following day. Or the eventual liver, heart or brain damage, one supposes.

Don’t sneer at the futuristic flim-flam. We laughed at driverless cars, Amazon drones and a fembot in every home turning our boiler on and off. Now look where we are. And here’s Nutt predicting that as cigarette smokers have taken to vaping, then wine and whisky lovers, seduced previously by clever marketing, pretty labels and notions of a vineyard or distillery’s prestige, will immediately start buying “Alcosynth 234: All-Night Party flavour”. Or whatever the marketeers come up with.

Personally, I hope we can match the alcosynth to the specific event. “Alcosynth 76: Shouty/Belligerent” for example, for Friday night post-work drinks where things really aren’t better left unsaid. Or an under-the-counter bottle of “Alcosynth 89: Smutty Strumpet” for evenings out with girlfriends where no poor trainee policeman will go off duty feeling anything less than harassed.

If this doesn’t sound disconcerting enough, it’s Nutt’s cheery optimism over Planet Alcosynth that gives me the fear: “Alcohol kills more than malaria, meningitis, tuberculosis and dengue fever put together,” he says. “Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could replace alcohol with something that led to almost no deaths?”

No, Nutt, just no. A Britain without hangovers feels like terrifying fear-free, anarchic dystopia.

We are a culture built on drinking to excess, yes, but this is rapidly chased up the following day with regret, pain, self-admonishment and a period of noisy abstinence.

“I am never drinking again, ever,” you will groan, following a long period of trying to locate your car which, it transpires, has been parked for three days outside The Nag’s Head. The hangover period following any night out is vital. We need the fear.

We need the cold light of day where bilious, lonely, hungry, horny, paranoid and regretful moments skewer our consciences as 24 units of vodka ebb from our systems.

It is these hangovers that give us time to take stock, arduously, of our shortcomings. It is these hangovers that mean we may never drink cider again for 25 years after chucking up Merrydown into a neighbour’s bush in 1987.

It is the threat of “the fear” that will lead to you covering your glass during mulled wine top-ups at the next family mince pie jingle and mingle. Because no one enjoyed you telling Aunty Rita her big face reminded you of Frank Sidebottom, did they? You had 24 hours to ruminate on that as you leaned into your toilet all of Boxing Day 2015.

And while I understand Nutt’s argument that alcosynth may lead to fewer deaths from booze-related diseases, I do wonder if we’re opening ourselves up to more “deaths by misadventure”. Perhaps it is only the fact that hangovers, after the age of 25, appear to worsen until drinking isn’t worth it at all, that preserves a sort of cosy British social equilibrium. Far fewer people over the age of 40 jump off balconies in Benidorm, wrap their cars around trees after nightclubbing or die in town centre brawls, because after the age of 30 the threat of a “two glass of pinot noir all-day hangover” makes most middle-aged gits thoroughly, mind-zappingly cautious.

But in an alcosynth-infused world, the nightclubs, bars and parties could be full of synthetically boozed-up Generation Xers and baby boomers. Oh gosh, haven’t the millennials suffered enough? Not only did the older generations take all the houses, accrue all the savings and screw the economy, but now we’re in their leisure spaces spending the money that we didn’t need to spend on our education on “Alcosynth 345: Rowdy Over-40, Strength: House Music All Night Long”.

Professor Nutt thinks alcosynths will lead to fewer deaths, but I worry it would be the opposite.

I can’t blame Generation Z, the post-millennials, for wanting to strangle many of my generation if we end up out later and longer getting wasted without any repercussions. And whatever happens the morning after, human beings who are drunk are simply an enormous pain in the bottom to our A&E departments, staffed by many doctors and nurses who, for cultural reasons, have never drunk alcohol in the first place.

However we end up tipsy, whatever laboratory our poison came from, it will be these long-suffering public-facing workers who inevitably deal with the unavoidable headache.