Plus don't forget: even the "pain relief" provided by sticking a knife through your skin to the bone is addictive. So the side effect of addiction isn't going to go away.
> even the "pain relief" provided by sticking a knife through your skin to the bone is addictive
> the side effect of addiction isn't going to go away
While I agree with your conclusion itself, I disagree that the premise implies the conclusion. The main difference between suzetrigine and opioids, as explained in the article:
Crucially, opioids don’t just kill pain: they also incite pleasure.
When the mu opioid receptors present in the reward center of the
brain are activated, this reduces the secretion of a neurotransmitter
called GABA, which works to inhibit dopamine-producing neurons. As GABA
release declines, dopamine spikes, lighting up the reward center and
inducing pleasure.
The "pain relief" provided by sticking a knife though your skin to the bone is caused by endorphine, which functions similarly to opioids, and that's why it's addictive.
Since suzetrigine doesn't affect mu receptors in the brain, this mechanism doesn't apply.
But I'm almost sure it will have some other unintended side effects. Morphine had them, heroin had them, methadon had them... And each time the inventors were sure they didn't.
Some people pratice self-mutilation to relief their depression. 20 something years ago I frequented a girl who was full of scars under her clothes, she was pretty good at finding plausible excuses for the scars (plausible to a 20yr old ignorant about that practice), one day she confessed that she did this to herself and that she was unable to stop... It's not a memory I tought I would revisit but your question made me think of her and her dangerous mania.
Injuries generally cause brain to release endorphins, which in turn releases dopamine, causing addiction. For example, cutting is a common type of self-mutilation depressed people do. High-intensity exercise arguably also does the same thing - as your body is "microinjured" by strain, your brain releases endorphins to help with the pain, causing effects like "the runner's high".
Like for Aron Ralston, who was trapped under a rock and had to cut off his own leg to escape: would it have reduced his pain if he had stabbed himself in the shoulder to the bone?
Would this best be done with, say possibly, acupuncture needles or an ice pick, so as to minimize the damage and to maximize the relief?
Gunsmoke TV episode:
Doc: Well, Billy, we'll have to amputate your lower left leg - it's shot plumb thru with gangrene.
Billy: Will it hurt, Doc?
Doc: Hell yeah, it'll hurt! But thanks to Hacker News we have a new pain treatment: every time you yell. Chester here will stab your right leg to the bone with this h'yar ice pick. And Mary will hold a leather strap in your mouth so your teeth don't crack off! Don't forget to breathe.
Billy: I'm obliged and grateful to be part of your research program, Doc, but can't you instead just wait 10 minutes while I drink this here quart of whiskey and pass out? Then you can do as you wish.
Doc: Hell, no, time's a'wasting! Hold him down, fellas! Doctorin' progresses only a step at a time!
It very much oversimplifies the interaction between GABA and dopamine as effects of dopamine and the interaction with GABA varies much depending on the brain region and the specific receptor.
Also honestly the conclusion is very much pseudosciencey, if it was so simple nobody would find benzos pleasurable except on withdrawal
Plus don't forget: even the "pain relief" provided by sticking a knife through your skin to the bone is addictive. So the side effect of addiction isn't going to go away.