SCOTLAND has become the first country in Europe to prescribe a new drug designed to help people with drinking problems.
The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), which approves drugs for the NHS in Scotland, has recommended that nalmefene can be prescribed north of the Border.
It is designed for people who are heavy drinkers but not the most severely dependent alcoholics.
The SMC said it should only be prescribed alongside psychological support.
Trials showed the drug reduced alcohol consumption by about 60% after six months.
The drug blocks the part of the brain that processes pleasure, but only pathological pleasure, not simple pleasures such as riding a bicycle. With alcohol, it is said to break the brain's reward mechanism when alcoholics drink. Rather than preventing drinking, it is expected to help reduce alcohol dependence.
The drug, which was approved in the US seven years ago for the intravenous treatment of heroin overdoses, was also considered to be potentially effective in curbing gambling.
In 2006, researchers at Minnesota University found, following a four-month trial of 207 people, that almost 60% of compulsive gamblers taking the drug reported a much improved or very much improved condition.
Earlier this year the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) approved the drug for reducing alcohol consumption marketed under the brand name Selincro by Danish drugmaker Lundbeck.
It comes in the form of a pill, designed to be taken before drinking, and is priced at £3 per tablet.
Scotland's health statistics show the country has long been in the grip of an alcohol abuse crisis.
The impact of excessive alcohol consumption in Scotland is estimated to cost the country £3.6 billion each year - £900 for every adult in Scotland - through health, crime and employment.
An NHS Health Scotland report last year found that Scotland's alcohol-related mortality rate is more than two-and-a-half times higher than in the early-1980s, remains nearly twice as high as in England and Wales, and is one of the highest in western and central Europe.
Professor Jonathan Chick, consultant psychiatrist at Queen Margaret University Hospital Edinburgh, said: "I am pleased that Scottish patients will have access to nalmefene, which represents a new option for treating some people with alcohol dependence by helping them to cut down their drinking when they may not be ready, or have no medical need, to give up alcohol altogether.
"This may help us to engage the many alcohol-dependent patients that we know are not currently receiving help."
The SMC said nalmefene was licensed for the reduction of alcohol consumption "in adult patients with alcohol dependence without physical withdrawal symptoms and who do not require immediate detoxification".
The World Health Organisation classifies drinking risk levels (DRLs) into low, medium, high and very high, where high risk relates to seven-and-a-half units of alcohol per day for men and five units per day for women.
The consortium said: "Nalmefene should only be prescribed in conjunction with continuous psychosocial support focused on treatment adherence and reducing alcohol consumption.
"Nalmefene should be initiated only in patients who continue to have a high DRL two weeks after initial assessment."
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