Oh come on. This headline makes it sound like they're just mixing the antibacterial hand gels with Coke and OJ for the heck of it. As if they're just a bunch of sick weirdos or something. But they're doing it to get drunk. So at least there's nobility of purpose. Try to be more accurate in with your headline, subby.

Yuck.

Pocket Ninja: Oh come on. This headline makes it sound like they're just mixing the antibacterial hand gels with Coke and OJ for the heck of it. As if they're just a bunch of sick weirdos or something. But they're doing it to get drunk. So at least there's nobility of purpose. Try to be more accurate in with your headline, subby.

Why else would they drink it?

Pocket Ninja: Oh come on. This headline makes it sound like they're just mixing the antibacterial hand gels with Coke and OJ for the heck of it. As if they're just a bunch of sick weirdos or something. But they're doing it to get drunk. So at least there's nobility of purpose. Try to be more accurate in with your headline, subby.

I wished subby had given drink recipes...I could use a good Long Island Iced Anteabacterial

Alcoholic hand gels?

Put it on my Bill, W.

Ick

Sodium Benzoate: Pocket Ninja: Oh come on. This headline makes it sound like they're just mixing the antibacterial hand gels with Coke and OJ for the heck of it. As if they're just a bunch of sick weirdos or something. But they're doing it to get drunk. So at least there's nobility of purpose. Try to be more accurate in with your headline, subby.

Why else would they drink it?

Who needs ghetto ale when you've already got coke?

/what do you mean soda?
//I don't understand what you're saying

So they get pissed and get colon cleansed at the same time.

SWEET

Maybe it would be easier to put gin in the dispensers. Everybody wins!

They were sticking this stuff up OJ Simpson? I don't see a problem ...

I couldn't ever see myself craving alcohol enough to drink that shiat. Blech!

I think the article is getting confused between alcoholic proof and ABV. Whisky is 40% ABV, which is around 70 degrees proof.
The article says 75 per cent proof is nearly double that of whisky.
Proof isn't even measured in percentages and even if it were it would be less than the alcohol in standard whisky.

/Also, I was involved in the system that sends out patient safety alerts so I'm really getting a kick out of these replies.
//Seriously, I was. The system is a bag of shiate.

Pocket Ninja: Oh come on. This headline makes it sound like they're just mixing the antibacterial hand gels with Coke and OJ for the heck of it. As if they're just a bunch of sick weirdos or something. But they're doing it to get drunk. So at least there's nobility of purpose. Try to be more accurate in with your headline, subby.

I mix alcoholic antibacterial hand gel with orange juice, but strictly as a political statement.

"75 per cent proof"?

If the patients are that bad, they probably should supply them with everclear until they are fixed, and then ship them to detox.

If you are a raging alcoholic, you can actually die from alcohol withdrawal.

One small step in saving the world from alcohol-proof superbugs.

/proof, geddit?

Is Kitty Dukakis in the hospital again?

If I put antibacterial gel into my home-brew, won't that kill the yeast?

Haircut2305: I think the article is getting confused between alcoholic proof and ABV. Whisky is 40% ABV, which is around 70 degrees proof.

LOLWUT

Proof is legally defined as 2x percent. 40% alcohol is 80.00000000 proof.

This reminds me of the time I drank a bottle of bitters. It was so nasty I needed mouthwash to get the taste out of my mouth after every shot. I knew there was alcohol in the mouthwash too, so I drank that as well. I wouldn't recommend it.

/Ok, so I am an incorrigible drunk
//The bitters was 80 proof though

"Give him some squeeze!"

Whoreable: This reminds me of the time I drank a bottle of bitters.

That has to be one of the worst things I've ever read.

/caliente!

101111: Haircut2305: I think the article is getting confused between alcoholic proof and ABV. Whisky is 40% ABV, which is around 70 degrees proof.

LOLWUT

Proof is legally defined as 2x percent. 40% alcohol is 80.00000000 proof.

Not in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_proof#History

It's not used anymore because of the UK, but according to that 40% alcohol is 70 degrees proof.

No "Obvious" tag?

Lightweights

Wut? Hand sanitizer contains ethanol? Why not just use isopropanol, you can't drink that.

Jello shots?

I thought that the alcohol in hand gel wasn't the type your should drink.

No Such Agency: Wut? Hand sanitizer contains ethanol? Why not just use isopropanol, you can't drink that.

Ethanol is about 55% of all the alcohols by volume, so it's probably cheaper than iso, methyl or any other of the alcohol distillates.

Thisbymaster: I thought that the alcohol in hand gel wasn't the type your should drink.

What kind of pathetic drunks are these people?

Oooh!! Someone spilled beer in this ashtray!

No Such Agency: Wut? Hand sanitizer contains ethanol? Why not just use isopropanol, you can't drink that.

Oh, I'm sure you can.

The tricky part is drinking it twice.

The reason I think this is "Obvious" is because I'm no longer surprised by the lengths people go through to get their fixes. It makes me worry for the future of humanity, it really does.

What ever happened to letting natural selection do it's work.

That's pretty farking hardcore. There's rock bottom and then there are people who are so desparate for a buzz they'll drink toxic shiat. I'm normally a heartless bastard but the thought of someone reduced to this level makes me sad.

Where's the Obvious tag when you need it? On the curb squeezing Sterno through Wonderbread, no doubt.

This kind of crap just shows that medical, and especially psychiatric, care professionals don't have the first inkling what they're dealing with, pretty much ever. If they did, the alcohol content of this goo would have been noticed and rejected long before they bought the first jar of it.

OK, the alcohol used in sanitary hand gels is 2-propanol (isopropyl) alcohol, not ethanol.

You drink that crap, you die.

Jument: There's rock bottom and then there are people who are so desparate for a buzz they'll drink toxic shiat.

Like antifreeze... Lysol may not be toxic, but it would taste pretty damned nasty. I've seen the homeless guys being ejected from the grocery store with a bottle of mouthwash - they'll buy a bottle, then go into the washroom to drink it. They have the receipt to prove they bought a bottle, so they'll nab another one from the shelf, sneak off & drink that. The store employees usually don't know what's up until the stnky old bum with the amazingly fresh breath starts staggering around and knocking displays down...

Jacobin: Jello shots?

Oh, I need a good recipe

I'm no chemist, but aren't those anti-bacterial hand gels methanol rather than ethanol based? And doesn't consuming methanol KILL YOU? Or at least make you GO FARKING BLIND? Just sayin'

/For all I know, they're ethanol-based.

studebaker hoch: OK, the alcohol used in sanitary hand gels is 2-propanol (isopropyl) alcohol, not ethanol.

You drink that crap, you die.

I just checked the small bottle in my purse - 62% ethyl alcohol. Could it be that Canada & the U.K. switched to ethanol so that people might O.D., but wouldn't get poisoned?

I think the stuff here used to be isopropyl alcohol in gel form.

Yikes! This is just like that episode of Intervention with the pathetic woman drunk on mouthwash, and trying to justify herself.

/can't watch that show w/o screaming at the TV

cherryl taggart: /can't watch that show w/o screaming at the TV

Yep, there's more than one sort of dependency besides alcohol.

It's sad that people would have to resort to drinking such things to get drunk, but at least now doctors will have to WASH THEIR GODDAMN HANDS! Yes, there are strains of bacteria that are immune to alcohol and can only be killed by regular soap washing. Did I mention these bacteria cause really bad shiats?

There was actually an episode of intervention in which this very thing took place, an alcoholic man drank hand sanitizer at a hospital.

studebaker hoch: OK, the alcohol used in sanitary hand gels is 2-propanol (isopropyl) alcohol, not ethanol.

You drink that crap, you die.

techmom: I just checked the small bottle in my purse - 62% ethyl alcohol. Could it be that Canada & the U.K. switched to ethanol so that people might O.D., but wouldn't get poisoned?

I think the stuff here used to be isopropyl alcohol in gel form.

Interesting question. Because if you switch to isopropyl, people will perodically get really sick and/or go permanently blind because of it. There's no way to warn them.

Ideally you'd want to make it unpalatable by adding a small % of something awful. We were warned in high school that they added phenolphthalein to it which you give you explosive diarrhea (was that true or just a story they told??). But in a hand sanitizer it'd leave residue that would inevitably create big problems.

Whoreable: This reminds me of the time I drank a bottle of bitters. It was so nasty I needed mouthwash to get the taste out of my mouth after every shot. I knew there was alcohol in the mouthwash too, so I drank that as well. I wouldn't recommend it.

/Ok, so I am an incorrigible drunk
//The bitters was 80 proof though

Bitters is a great cure for heartburn.

/The More You Know
//why yes, I AM fun at parties
///acid reflux FTW

Ethanol is used in most of these because it doesn't cause the kind of dryness most other alcohols do. Normally when ethanol is used in products not meant to be drank, they "denature" it which basically means they add mild poison to it to make it undrinkable. You can't do that with hand sanitizer because those chemicals will leach into your skin.


The alternatives are generally a good bit more expensive.

I don't know if this is applicable, but just to muddy the ethyl / methyl debate:

Wood alcohols react with some plastics, whereas ethanol does not. At one IT shop I worked I wondered why the hardware techs had a bottle of Everclear on the shelf. They used it for cleaning electronics because rubbing alcohol would eat a coating on circuit boards.

I'm fairly sure they weren't joshing me... They only drank beer in huge quantities.