| New Inhaler Sends the Booze Straight to the Brain
For the first time in the history of mixed drinks, the next trendy cocktail is meant to be inhaled rather than swallowed. A rejiggered vaporizer may be the next nightclub fad, and you don't have to have croup to use it.
The "AWOL machine" -- no, that's not George W. Bush's National Guard nickname, it stands for "Alcohol Without Liquid" -- lets people breathe atomized shots of liquor via a plastic tube that resembles an asthma inhaler.
It's a similar idea to an oxygen bar, but AWOL provides an alcoholic kick that borders on "mild euphoria," according to its U.S. distributor, Spirit Partners of Greensboro, N.C.
Hedonists targeted
This "ultimate party toy... provides party goers and hedonists with a radical new way to consume alcohol," says the company's Web site (awolmachine. com). The company also claims the device prevents the ingestion of calories and minimizes hangover symptoms, although experts call those claims hogwash and say AWOL is more dangerous than drinking.
Kevin Morse, a North Carolina attorney who is the chief executive of Spirit Partners, did not respond to requests for comment.
AWOL was invented by Dominic Simler, a former aromatherapy salesman in England who is marketing AWOL in Europe and Asia. In the United States , AWOL premiered in August at a party in Manhattan, although questions about its legality forced a last- minute substitution of fruit- infused water for the 80- proof alcohol recommended for the device. Spirit Partners says it is seeking distributors in all 50 states.
With all the sophistication of a Viagra spam, Spirit Partners' Web site boasts of the "very reliable and outrageous income" available to AWOL distributors and the many occasions at which entertaining with an AWOL machine is appropriate, such as "private parties, weddings and bar or bat mitzvahs."
The machines, which are about the size of a briefcase and weigh 60 pounds, sell for $2,595 with two attached inhalers or $2,895 with four inhalers.
But legal and health concerns are slowing AWOL's spread.
After the Manhattan launch, lawmakers in two New York counties and New York state proposed bans on the machines. As it happens, AWOL doesn't appear to be legal in New York anyway because of a law that prevents alcohol from being sold in any container other than the original. ("Put that carafe down, ma'am, and put your hands up.")
Here in California, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control says it regulates drinks, not devices, so it does not oversee AWOL machines. But ABC staff are talking to citizens' groups and other agencies about taking action if the machines arrive in California and appear to be a problem, says spokesman Pat Deasy.
"We haven't yet concluded whether it's harmful," he says, although Spirit Partners' health claims raise a "red flag." ABC is prepared to work with the state attorney general or legislators if necessary, Deasy says.
Given the large supply of liquor in this country that is readily abused the old-fashioned way, is breathing it really a big a deal?
Health experts say yes, because inhaling sends a larger and purer dose of alcohol to the brain by bypassing the liver and other organs. Inhaling also prevents the body from purging itself through vomiting, since there isn't any alcohol in the stomach to expel.
"I'm concerned that there is potential for greater abuse" than with drinking because "by inhaling alcohol you can get pretty high, and a lot quicker," says Dr. Robert Swift, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown Medical School in Rhode Island.
The lungs have a huge surface area, with only one layer of cells separating inhaled air from the blood supply. Swift estimates that 25 percent of the alcohol that's inhaled goes directly to the brain, foregoing the dilution that would occur if it circulated through the stomach, intestine, liver and the right ventricle of the heart.
"That's why people prefer to smoke drugs instead of taking them other ways," he says. "The brain experiences more of a rush."
The evidence is mixed, though, about the intensity of AWOL.
The machines are calibrated to release one shot over 20 minutes and the company recommends no more than two sessions per day.
Simler told the Sunday Times he once inhaled absinthe for an hour and couldn't stand up for three hours afterward. Absinthe is a potent liquor that is illegal in the United States.
Morse expects to sell most of the machines for use in homes, which would lack even the modicum of control exerted by bar staff. "Maybe the largest market of all is the guy or gal who has to have all the big boy's toys," says Spirit Partners' Web site.
On the other hand, a bar in New Jersey returned its AWOL machine after four days because it didn't provide enough of a kick, Steve Baskinger, owner of Bask Bar and Grill in West Paterson, told the Associated Press.
"They shouldn't waste their breath trying to outlaw this machine," says Baskinger, who charged barflies $10 per shot. "You can't get drunk ... It takes 20 minutes to inhale a quarter of a shot."
Swift believes the greatest danger is not the machine, but any popularization of boiling and inhaling alcohol. He says he knows of at least one enterprising college chemistry student who hooked up a contraption to do just that.
Spirit Partners' health claims appear both dubious and misleading. It markets inhaling as a "low carbohydrate" way to ingest spirits, but pure alcohol, whether liquid or vaporized, does not contain carbs.
The low-calorie claim is completely false; alcohol has the same number of calories no matter how it enters the body, says Swift.
There are several theories about the causes of hangover, including that symptoms such as headache are caused by alcohol withdrawal or toxic methanol. Neither of those would be minimized by inhaling, Swift says.
A third theory is that a substance called acetaldehyde, which is chemically similar to the embalming fluid formaldehyde, may cause headache by building up in the liver during alcohol intake.
Since less alcohol passes through the liver with AWOL, the effects of acetaldehyde may be reduced, says Swift. However, the interruption of sleep patterns caused by alcohol remain the same.
Questionable health claims like these often attract the attention of false advertising watchdogs, but the AWOL machine appears to fall through the regulatory cracks.
Who is regulating AWOL?
U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Crystal Rice says her agency does not have jurisdiction over beverage alcohol and related products, which is left to the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
But TTB spokesman Art Resnick says his agency doesn't have jurisdiction either. After the AWOL launch, a TTB laboratory analyzed one of the devices to determine if it was a still, which would have triggered TTB oversight. But the machine isn't a still, it's simply a vaporizer.
Spirit Partners is "not advertising an alcoholic beverage and they're not a regulated industry member, so therefore we don't have jurisdiction to pursue it," says Resnick.
However, he notes that many state laws could prevent the sale of AWOL machines. In addition to rules like New York's container law, North Carolina, Spirit Partners' home state, is among the states that ban "huffing" -- the abuse of inhalants -- says Resnick. AWOL qualifies as huffing.
Equal time: I made fun of our president at the beginning of this column, so in the good-natured spirit of bipartisanship that dominates this election season, I will end with a Kerry joke:
John Kerry walks into a bar and the bartender says, "Why the long face?"
- SF Gate Chronicle | |
