New teen alcohol trend might be most dangerous

Teens have always found inven­tive ways of con­ceal­ing the use of alco­hol, from drink­ing mouth wash to soak­ing gummy bears in vodka. But the newest trend might be the most dangerous.

Teens have now dis­cov­ered hand san­i­tizer will not only keep them from spread­ing germs, it can also get them intox­i­cated. Most hand san­i­tiz­ers con­tain at least 60-percent ethyl alco­hol which is the same kind of alco­hol found in a glass of wine but at much higher levels.

The new trend of using hand san­i­tizer to get intox­i­cated came to the atten­tion of emer­gency room doc­tors in the Los Ange­les area after six teens were treated for alco­hol poi­son­ing over a two-month period. There have been pre­vi­ous reports of kids becom­ing ill after acci­den­tally drink­ing gelled hand san­i­tiz­ers, but teens have now dis­cov­ered ways to sep­a­rate the alco­hol from the gel. The result is a 120-proof shot of alco­hol which is about 50 per­cent more potent than a shot of vodka or tequila.

While teen alco­hol use has been on the decline over the past few years, it is still the No. 1 abused sub­stance among teens and about 5,000 teens die each year from alco­hol poi­son­ing. There have not been any reports of deaths related to ingest­ing the alco­hol from hand san­i­tizer but med­ical experts are con­cerned. Hand san­i­tizer is eas­ily avail­able and so are social net­work­ing sites that have direc­tions on how to sep­a­rate the alco­hol from the gel.

Par­ents should treat hand san­i­tizer like any other drug they have in the house. Hand san­i­tizer should be kept in a locked cab­i­net and the use mon­i­tored closely. Par­ents should also be mon­i­tor­ing and con­trol­ling what their chil­dren have access to on the inter­net. Being a con­cerned adult not only means keep­ing your kids safe, it means keep­ing all kids safe. Keep any­thing that could be harm­ful to kids out of sight and locked up and help keep our kids safe.

Keep­ing Our Kids Safe is brought to you by the Delaware Police Depart­ment and School Resource Offi­cer Rod Glazer.

Posted by Rod Glazer on Jun 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.