Leave it to the ingenuity of a teenager...

[Scooter]

...to figure out yet another dangerous way to get high.

LOS ANGELES—Six teenagers have shown up in two Los Angeles emergency rooms in the last few months with alcohol poisoning after drinking hand sanitizer, worrying public health officials who say the cases could signal a dangerous trend.

Some of the teenagers used salt to separate the alcohol from the sanitizer, making a potent drink that is similar to a shot of hard liquor.

“All it takes is just a few swallows and you have a drunk teenager,” said Cyrus Rangan, director of the toxicology bureau for Los Angeles County’s public health department and a medical toxicology consultant for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “There is no question that it is dangerous.”

Although there have been only a handful of cases, Rangan said the practice could easily become a larger problem. Bottles of hand sanitizer are inexpensive and accessible, and teenagers can find distillation instructions on the Internet.

“It is kind of scary that they go to that extent to get a shot of essentially hard liquor,” Rangan said.

In addition to the teenagers who intentionally drank the sanitizer, younger children also have accidentally ingested it in the past.

The liquid hand sanitizer is 62 per cent ethyl alcohol and makes a 120-proof liquid. A few drinks can cause a person’s speech to slur and stomach to burn, and make people so drunk that they have to be monitored in the emergency room.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Now why didn't I ever think of that?

[Lord Jim]

This is the cleverest idea for getting high I've heard of since the spraying Raid in a sock and sucking the fumes in craze a few years back....

Part of me thinks the kids who decide these incredibly stupid ways of getting stoned are a good idea need help....

And part of me says maybe we shouldn't intervene; perhaps this one of nature's way of improving the gene pool....

[dales]

Why don't they just raid their old man's liquor cabinet?

[BoSoxGal]

And part of me says maybe we shouldn't intervene; perhaps this one of nature's way of improving the gene pool....

As if!

Most of these losers live long enough to breed - often several times over. Then the abdicate the role of parent to schools, the state, the criminal justice system, etc.

If only stupidity caused sterility.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Why don't they just raid their old man's liquor cabinet?

oooo oooo, I know, I know
'cause all the liqour that used to be there has been replaced with water or tea.

[Rick]

Sterno...

[Jarlaxle]

Bums have been getting drunk on Purell for years...to the point some stores lock it up!

[MajGenl.Meade]

And to think it all started when some mother said "I'm going to wash your mouth out" and she did.

[dgs49]

The Rule of Unintended Consequences.

Teach kids to read lables and they read lables. It's what comes after that that might be a problem.

[BoSoxGal]

Labels, even?

[Lord Jim]

Gen'l Meade, I find you new avatar...well...disturbing....

[Crackpot]

You are not alone.

(is Jim asking for more LC?)

[Lord Jim]

I hate to admit it CP, but even that would be preferable....(I just pretend it's Leonard Nimoy)

This one he's got now is almost as creepy as when mediator was using a hot blonde....

[Scooter]

Thankfully I missed that, or maybe I'm blocking it out.

[Rick]

You are not alone.

(is Jim asking for more LC?)

OK what's LC

[kristina]

His favorite composer (?), of course!


(Leonard Cohen, just in case you didn't know)

[Rick]

D'OH!

[rubato]

Aquanet hairspray is mostly ethanol. 20 years ago, when I was reading the forensics literature, there was a story about how large amounts of it were brought onto the Navajo Rez and the cans were opened by punching two holes near the top. The ethanol was mixed with kool aid (very cheap).

http://www.jem-journal.com/article/S073 ... 1/abstract

http://www.wellbriety-nci.org/Publications/ocean.htm

I wonder if the trend for youngsters to experiment like this isn't coded into the genome; how else did we learn to eat oysters?


yrs,
rubato