Savour your favourite tipple now as you may not be drinking alcohol within a generation, according to a top scientist.
Professor David Nutt, a former government drugs adviser of Imperial College London, says synthetic booze called alcosynth will replace real alcohol in just 10 or 20 years.
The man-made liquor will have the same intoxicating effect on us but won't harm our health, it's said. He also believes that cigarettes and tobacco will be entirely replaced by e-cigarettes.
Prof Nutt told International Business Times UK: "In another 10 or 20 years, Western societies won't drink alcohol except on rare occasions.
"Alcosynth will become the preferred drink, in the same way that I can see – almost within a decade now in the Western world – tobacco and cigarettes will disappear as they're replaced by electronic cigarettes."
The NHS says 23.5 million adults drink alcohol every week in the UK, with about 6,800 alcohol-related deaths in the UK every year, according to latest figures.
Long-term alcohol abuse can lead to heart disease, strokes, liver and bowel cancer, liver disease and pancreatitis.
Alcosynth is said to give you all the pleasurable side effects of alcohol, such as social lubrication, without damaging our bodies.
However you can never get as drunk by drinking the synthetic alternative as you can with real booze as there is a limit to drunkenness. After a drinker reaches the limit, the effect plateaus.
Prof Nutt added: 'It could well change culture.
'If there's less intoxication then there will be less violence on the street, less vomiting and less unpleasantness in our city centres.'
Prof Nutt and his venture Alcarelle are currently bidding for £7 million of investment to bring low-calorie, hangover-free and synthetic alcohol to British, US, EU or Canadian markets.
Daily Mail