Dr. Keith Humphreys

Like, I just wish I didn't desire this drug as much as I do.

And I think that was something a friend of mine said to me over lunch, a friend of mine who I noticed had lost a lot of weight.

And I said, wow, you've lost a lot of weight.

And he goes, yeah, I'm on GLPs.

And he said, I used to spend all day not eating.

And now I don't think about it.

It was effortful all day long.

Don't eat, don't eat, don't eat, don't eat.

And now that voice is just gone.

And so what if we could do that for, say, cocaine or alcohol?

You know, they are sort of in the same kind of family of behaviors.

And there are some interesting studies.

Now, to be clear, there are some studies that are negative, you know, nothing ever works out perfectly for everybody.

But when I look through animal studies, small trials and opportunistic epidemiological studies, so like when you go through the hospital, you know, here's 10,000 people who had a diagnosis of cocaine use disorder and let's see if the ones on JLPs went to the emergency room less, something like that.

None of these, you know, they're vulnerable to different kinds of selection effects.

But still, I see this pattern particularly with semaglutide, which is the GLP that is in Wegevi and Ozempic and alcohol, drops in alcohol use.

And the other thing I think is perhaps important and why I'm working now with the VA and Novo and a philanthropist to do something like this is...

that alcohol is the most like eating of drug behaviors.

So to the extent these drugs create a sense of satiety and fullness,

To me, that seems more likely to change, you know, swallowing something, a drink, versus, say, injecting myself or snorting a powder.