Teens in L.A. getting drunk on 120-proof hand-sanitizer shots

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.”

I would have never thought of that.

But I guess they should be careful or it could get dangerous...

Link

Vagrants, bums and hard-core alchys have been doing this for a long, long time. This and worse.

Strange that some stupid kids would latch onto what is typically a behavior saved for the rock-bottom destitute.

This was apparently a problem a couple of years ago here in the UK, at least thats when i heard about it. There were thefts of the large conatiners of the stuff that hospitals have dotted around. I'm sure i heard that homeless people were finding it a cheaper solution to buying alcohol.

CX.

Nothing like Purell Chaser after a hit of Bananadine!

Are we really an experimental species or are we just that damn stupid!

Sheesh! Kids seem to always come up with a new buzz!

Its not pure Ethanol, its usually around 70% for Hand Sanitizer, with added moisturizer and some other additive in order to prevent consumption, because of that, it doesn;t taste good and makes you want to throw up, and you would need alot to get drunk, as well as possible diarrhea, throat pain, dry mouth, maybe lose taste for few hrs.

Commercially bought Ethanol usually contains a mix of methanol or other additives to prevent drinking.

Mouthwash is a better option lol, but would require even more.

This pretty scary to think of. I mean, I'm no chemist, but I'd guess that depending on the various brands of sanitizer, you may not be getting pure alcohol when you "distill" this stuff, which would make it far more dangerous due to possible long term damage caused by one unwanted molecule

At leasst it isn't Nutmeg

......future leaders of America everybody.

These kids need to find some serious help.

Imbeciles.

When I was younger, I knew people who would "go to robopulous" which was the act of drinking robotusin cough syrup in an attempt to get drunk.

I do not drink alcohol, myself, but I have nothing against it. Heck, I was once a bartender.

I really do think they need to lower the drinking age. Sure, alcohol related crimes and injuries would increase in the short run, but as the novelty wears off, so will the incidents.

I also believe in the legalization and regulation of controlled substances as a way to reduce crime and protect people from unscrupulous dealers and their associates. Drug use would increase in the short term, but the crime rate would drop considerably in the long term.

Just my 2 cents.

Super [facepalm].

Kids today are so easily influenced to do stupid things.
Can't they just steal their parents booze like I did?
Even when I was a teenager we didn't resort to this level of incompetence.
This is very telling of the times...


Better BAN hand-sanitizer!

they had to remove it from UK prisons after inmates were getting wasted on it.
www.telegraph.co.uk...

Originally posted by BomSquad
When I was younger, I knew people who would "go to robopulous" which was the act of drinking robotusin cough syrup in an attempt to get drunk.

I do not drink alcohol, myself, but I have nothing against it. Heck, I was once a bartender.

I really do think they need to lower the drinking age. Sure, alcohol related crimes and injuries would increase in the short run, but as the novelty wears off, so will the incidents.

I also believe in the legalization and regulation of controlled substances as a way to reduce crime and protect people from unscrupulous dealers and their associates. Drug use would increase in the short term, but the crime rate would drop considerably in the long term.

Just my 2 cents.

Hahah you don't "Robotrip" to get drunk. the DXM in Robitussin is a powerful hallucinogen, very similar to '___' if you take enough. It feels nothing like being drunk.

Originally posted by the_philth
Nothing like Purell Chaser after a hit of Bananadine!

Are we really an experimental species or are we just that damn stupid!

Sheesh! Kids seem to always come up with a new buzz!

could not of said it better.
I wonder how many brain cells
those chemicals in that crap
fried?

"If parents buy hand sanitizer, they should purchase the foam version rather than the gel type because it is harder to extract the alcohol and teenagers may be less likely to drink it, Arbogast said. Parents also shouldn’t leave hand sanitizer around the house and should monitor it like any other liquor or medicine. They should also watch for signs of intoxication, she said."


Yes, because every teenager is an alcoholic looking to get their fix by extracting alcohol from cleaning products.

This is clearly such an issue that parents should panic and put the house on lock down, making sure to monitor the hazardous, potentially criminal activity of 'washing hands'.

reply to post by BomSquad


Drinking cough syrup doesn't get you "drunk" per se. The chemical ingredient Dextramathorphin Hydrobromide "shuts off" the cough center in your brain in small doses, in large doses (an entire 4-8oz. bottle) the effects are akin to a psychedelic drug. People are always coming up with new ways to scramble their brains. but heck even cats like catnip.

Well you guys are all calling these kids stupid, but how many of you would have thought of extracting alcohol in that manner, if anything I applaud their ingenuity.

Obviously it takes some knowledge of chemistry to develop such a technique.

Imagine this, if you took that same idea, and brought the scale up.
You could make batches of moonshine, or even smarter, you could refine the alcohol then water it down into 20-30 percent bottles, and sell them for tons of profit.

I remember when i was a teen and my friends dad made homemade moonshine, and we stole a small plastic pop bottle full, good times haha

Come on people. If teenagers are really willing to try harmful recreational use of hand sanitizer, some parent forgot to do their job. That, or these types of kids will never learn to make responsible decisions for themselves. I remember being reckless as a teenager, but never doing anything that might put me in the hospital.

Originally posted by abe froman
reply to post by BomSquad

 

Drinking cough syrup doesn't get you "drunk" per se. The chemical ingredient Dextramathorphin Hydrobromide "shuts off" the cough center in your brain in small doses, in large doses (an entire 4-8oz. bottle) the effects are akin to a psychedelic drug. People are always coming up with new ways to scramble their brains. but heck even cats like catnip.

Exactly Ferris, thats what im sayin

reply to post by BomSquad


Well I've heard of teens/people using vodka tampons, drinking perfume or even anti-freeze but it's the first time I've heard of this

Thank you for the corrections on the Robotusin consumption....

I was only relaying a conversation I had with one of my friends at the time and how he described the reason for drinking it. I just took his word for it, since I had no desire to try it myself....

You learn something new every day