It’s needless to say that times today are changing, especially kids.
Teenagers in California have started showing up in emergency rooms with alcohol poisoning, but not from too much beer pong or flip cup. Kids are getting dangerously drunk off of hand sanitizer.
Over-the-counter hand sanitizer contains 62 percent percent ethyl alcohol and can be used to make a 120-proof liquid. For comparison, most vodka is about 80 or 100-proof. So, a few sips of hand sanitizer are about the equivalent, or more, of several shots of hard liquor which means that it’s really easy to get way too drunk, way too quickly. Not to mention that it sounds disgusting.
However, this isn’t the first crazy way that kids have come up with to get drunk.
Cough syrup is known as the original household product that can get you high. But it’s also really addictive and can be dangerous when accidentally combined with other over-the-counter drugs.
Mouthwash is another household product with high alcohol content. But this one isn’t just used by the “crazy kids.” Parents have been known to “accidentally” swallow mouthwash, too.
Inhaled nitrous oxide, or whip-its, have been a quick, easy, and cheap way to get high for a long time. Whip-its can cause some serious nervous system damage.
Vodka eyeballing became a major fad. It’s exactly what it sounds like – pouring shots of vodka into your eyeball. What’s the problem? It doesn’t even get you drunk, not at all. It just permanently damages your eyes.
But that’s not the only place vodka doesn’t belong. About a year after vodka eyeballing was a thing, vodka tampons became a craze. People hoped it was an urban legend, but it turned out to be true.
Bath salts smell nice and are great in your tub. But lots of them also contain a chemical that leads to a quick high when snorted. It’s turned out to be one of the most dangerous drugs. Bath salts make people violent and even suicidal.
Speaking of ways of getting high in the bathroom, putting your head upside down in a toilet and flushing it a few times can get you high. It is a combination of the blood rushing to your head and the holding of your breath so you don’t drown that makes this happen.
“I believe the kids that used to get picked on in school call this a swirly,” Randa Ali, Junior Vet Tech major recalls.
In 2011, 21-year-old man slashed his throat and ended his life with a gunshot to his head, an 11-year-old boy was found dead after hanging himself in his bedroom, and a girl attacked her sleeping mother with a machete, due to being high.
“When our parents’ generation was smoking dope, eating magic mushrooms, and tripping balls on acid, they were just being a bunch of crazy kids,” Ali said.
“Kids nowadays don’t know anything about their future and the problems alcohol and drugs create, unfortunately”, Junior Criminal Justice Major Rebekkah Manchuck said. “I’m alarmed by the recreational activities of our “children of tomorrow.”
Nobody knows what the solution is to stop kids from using these methods to get high. For starters, people are waiting to see if this is a real problem or just another fad that kids will eventually grow out of, and move on to something else.
“I’m alarmed by the recreational activities of our “children of tomorrow,” Manchuck said concerned.
