Shine OnTeens getting drunk off of hand sanitizer — the latest trend?
On a recent episode of Mad Men, a teenage girl in Pete Campbell's driving class admitted that she was a little bit drunk after swigging vanilla extract with a friend.
Since time immemorial, teenagers have gone to great lengths to get wasted. Whether it has been through the purchase of fake IDs, bribing older siblings or stealing from mom and dad's liquor cabinets, teens have managed to gain access to alcohol.
But the latest story about underage drinking is a far cry from the wholesome nostalgia reminiscent of The Wonder Years or various John Hughes movies.
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According to a story in the L.A. Times, six teenagers were recently hospitalized with alcohol poisoning from ingesting — wait for it — hand sanitizer. The teens allegedly used salt to separate the sanitizer from the ethyl alcohol in the product — the makings of 120-proof liquor.
"All it takes is just a few swallows and you have a drunk teenager," Cyrus Rangan, director of the toxicology bureau for the Los Angeles public health department, tells the L.A. Times. "There is no question that it is dangerous."
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Because hand sanitizer is cheap and readily available, there is some concern that the abuse of it could become a trend, just as it did with cough syrup.
"Cough syrup had reached a very sexy point where young people were using it.... We want to be sure this doesn't take on the same trend," Helen Arbogast, injury prevention coordinator at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, tells the L.A. Times.
Concerned parents should switch from gel sanitizer to the foam kind as the alcohol is more difficult to extract.
Watch the news report below on the issue:
