Alcoholics Now Trying 70% Hand Sanitizer

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Related: Green Russian (AKA MouthWash)

WASHINGTON -- The 49-year-old Maryland inmate seemed seriously sick after he drank from a gallon container of hand sanitizer. Described as "loony," "red-eyed" and "combative," officials whisked him to a nearby hospital for treatment.

But they quickly discovered he wasn't ill -- just very, very drunk on Purell. The October incident, detailed this past week in the New England Journal of Medicine as one of the first documented cases of its kind, has raised questions about the potential abuse of alcohol-based hand sanitizers.

"The widespread use of hand sanitizer is fraught with a great deal of danger," said Suzanne Doyon, medical director of the Maryland Poison Center, who co-authored a letter in the journal about the case. "From an infection control perspective, they are excellent. But there is this risk involved."

Purell, which is 70 percent alcohol, is far more potent than beer (5 percent), wine (10 percent) or hard liquor (40 percent). Doyon said the nonalcohol ingredients in hand sanitizer don't pose a health risk if ingested.

I Just hope this does not blow out of proportions amongst teenagers :

- Umm Not Eating = Skinny Body
- Umm Hand Sanitizer will Clean My body and Get me drunk at the same time


My Father Had a friend that died from liver failure after drinking Carpentry
chemicals that had alcohol...

if hand sanitizer has to become the executive arm of natural selection, then so be it.

a society composed entirely of people smart enough not to drink that stuff really doesn't sound so bad to me... maybe we should start issuing gallon jugs to every home in America.

Addiction trumps judgement.

Originally posted by The Parallelogram
a society composed entirely of people smart enough not to drink that stuff really doesn't sound so bad to me

The Darwin effect.

When I was in basic training in the Army, we were not allowed to buy cough syrup or Nyquil (those kinds of things) for the same reason. Alcoholics will find the alcohol anywhere they can. It's sad.

Well i have to admit thats a new one. I did pick up a patient once that had gone to a drug store and loaded up on the Old Spice and partied.

It highlights just how addictive alcohol can be.

[edit on 2/7/07 by FredT]

Wow, that's getting desperate....
I've heard of people drinking Aqua Velva aftershave, vanilla extract, and that awful salted cooking sherry kids shoplift from the grocer.

I'm curious what other ingredients are in hand sanitizers that may do more harm than the alcohol ?

None apparently.

...Doyon said the nonalcohol ingredients in hand sanitizer don't pose a health risk if ingested.

For some people, alcohol is just that addictive. I had a boss who told me the story of how he stopped and bought two bottles of Scope to drink as he drove across town to his bootlegger. It was Sunday so there was no sale of booze. He and I worked together for years and after he fell off the wagon I didn't see him for awhile. When we finally crossed paths again he didn't have a clue as to who I was.

They need to seriously be working on a cure for addiction.

Originally posted by mrwupy

They need to seriously be working on a cure for addiction.

That's the ticket.
I hate to see perfectly good products be restricted because some people abuse them.
Very effective medicines go behind the counter at the pharmacy because a few people choose to abuse them, to the detriment of us all.

Ooo mann yet another outlet for alcoholics/ my roomate is his 47th year of alcoholism and I have seen him drink rubbin alcohol b4. I better hide my Purell too!

Nothing new here, alcoholics have been drinking anything and everything for years, and years that has any amount of alcohol in it. Mouthwash, Isopropyl alcohol, perfume, you name it, and they will drink it if nothing else is available. Isn’t that sad, but yes, addiction does overshadow judgment like someone said earlier.

I'm not exactly sure what brand it was, but someone I know discovered by first-hand experience that a manufacturer had added a secondary ingredient to induce vomiting in order to stop people from chugging the stuff. Perhaps this is the sort of thing that's needed.

My god, what a dangerous thing to do. I have also heard of people buying sterno and heating it up to liquid form to drink it. Addiction is a difficult thing to overcome. My father is an alcoholic and has been recovering for years. He takes anibuse a drug that makes one violently ill if they ingest alcohol with it. but he has seen people that are on anibuse also drink alcohol and they actualy start to overcome the sickness of the anibuse.

It amaises me what depths people will sink to to feed their addictions...(lights ciggarette)

I think i can remember an experment on Brainiac Science Abuse (uk program) where one of the guys tried to raise the level of alchol in his blood using other meathods than drinking beer (why??)

Anywho, i'm pretty sure he was sucessfull by a beer sauna, and more so by bathing in beer for a period - cant remember if it was significant - been trying to find something on web but not found yet.

Is there much chance of absorbing the alc in hand rubs, bearing in mind 70% has been mentioned - beer is about 5-7% also nurses etc have to use between patients no a days due to MRSA etc.

Originally posted by jensouth31
Nothing new here, alcoholics have been drinking anything and everything for years, and years that has any amount of alcohol in it. Mouthwash, Isopropyl alcohol, perfume, you name it, and they will drink it if nothing else is available.

Indeed.
In my City's downtown core it is common to find empty bottles of Scope in the bus shelters.

My town too by the way that's a cool avatar