Are Your Kids Drinking Hand Sanitizer To Get Drunk?

In a disturbing new trend there have been increasing reports of teenagers that drink ordinary hand sanitizer to get drunk.

I already have to get carded for cold medicine and spray paint, will I soon have to whip out my ID for a bottle of Purell?

Riley DeGood from CBS 5 posted this story yesterday on Facebook and I was shocked. Kids say the darnedest things, and I guess they do the darnedest things too.

According to USA Today there have been an increasing number of kids showing up in emergency rooms after drinking hand sanitizer.

Cheap and easily accessible hand sanitizers contain 62 percent ethyl alcohol.

Ethyl alcohol is the same type of alcohol found in hard liquor. A a handful of teenagers are drinking the stuff straight up, or using salt to separate out the alcohol as a means to get an underage buzz.

Now, aside from the illegal nature of this and the possible health risks, what about the taste?!? Go rub some hand sanitizer on your palms and give it a little lick and I guarantee you'll never want to put hand sanitizer anywhere near your mouth.

Not all teenagers are stupid. Just the ones that would try and do this.

Doctors are urging parents to keep hand sanitizer out of reach of children and monitor it around teens. They also suggest parents who want to buy the hand sanitizer purchase the foam version rather than the gel version.

I can see it now, "Honey, we need hand sanitizer if you're going to the store...but make sure to get the foam kind so little Johnny doesn't decide to drink it all."

These few kids are ruining things for the rest of us! I already feel like  a criminal when I need to buy spray paint, whipped cream or Robitussin at a store and they have to whip out a managers key. I don't want to have have to get carded and Id scanned if I want to buy hand sanitizer in the future.

Let's hope this dumb trend dies-out before a lot more kids make themselves sick.

This could be one of the worst ideas ever, but if you have teens it might be time for one of those 'serious talks'.

You can click here and watch a video on the disturbing trend from KTLA 5 in Las Angeles.

[USA Today]

[LA Times]