Professor Jonathan Chick, consultant psychiatrist at Queen Margaret University Hospital Edinburgh, is all for it, telling the BBC when it was introduced that he was “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.”

Others remain unconvinced. A Glasgow GP, Dr. Des Spence, calls it a “bad medicine”. He questions a supporting study—perhaps understandably given it was conducted by the producer of the drug—and has aired concerns regarding cost and approval. “Even among these problem drinkers, the benefit of nalmefene was a reduction of just one or two units of alcohol a day, three heavy drinking days, and one additional dry day a month,” he wrote in the British Medical Journal. “Changes in liver function test results were minimal. Are these gains clinically significant?”