Isn't it bad enough that we are dealing with more and more young drunkenness, with the prospect of alcoholism and liver failure creeping into those in their early teens, without the additional alcohol-industry-induced trauma that drinks like this can cause?
Gaby Scanlon, an 18-year-old who was given one of these cocktails, endured agonising pain and was rushed to hospital by her friends. A CT scan revealed a large hole in her stomach.
Surgeons found that the extremely low temperature of the liquid nitrogen had not only burned a hole in her stomach but had completely destroyed her stomach lining. Her whole stomach had to be removed and surgeons connected her oesophagus, which takes food from the mouth to her stomach, directly to her bowel.
Now her diet is restricted for the rest of her life.
Proponents of these 'theatrical' cocktails will say they are perfectly safe to drink and that Gaby was an unfortunate 'one-off', but is it really worth even one young person's health (and she could have died if this hadn't been dealt with quickly) for the sake of selling more booze to inexperienced drinkers? I mean, what's the point of having smoke billowing from your glass as you drink? It has no effect on the alcohol or its taste, so clearly it's a gimmick to push booze down the throats of the young and vulnerable.
If liquid nitrogen does not completely evaporate, it will instantly freeze living tissue and destroy it. You can lose fingers by just touching it. So why is it clever to add it to a drink and then hand it over to someone without controlling the situation by ensuring the evaporation process is complete? It's exactly the same as removing something from the microwave and allowing someone to eat it immediately before the cooking process has stopped.
There's too much emphasis on creative boozing these days. Educating our young about the dangers of overdoing it is hard enough but dragging them away from an attractive smoking liqueur on their rite-of-passage birthdays is going to be impossible: they drink it, they enjoy it; or they drink it and the live the rest of their lives with the consequences.
I don't want to be a kill-joy here; life is all about risk but we should not be creating and introducing those risks to our children.
Be safe.
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8 comments:
Just curious, as a medic in the states we see underage drinking as anyone under 21. What's the legal drinking age in the U.K. ?
I completely agree. As one of these teens myself, I see that there is hell of a lot of pressure on getting drunk and doing the modern thing of wasting their livers on alcohol.
I wish there was less pressure and less enthusiasm for this kind of behaviour but I'm afraid it will take more than a few stark warnings to change the culture of modern day.
I wish you all the best in both your line of work and day to day life, you have been a true inspiration to me. I am determined to become a Paramedic one day no matter what it takes!
Anon
The legal age here is 18. But many, many teens begin their careers with booze at a much younger age.... some as young as 11 or 12.
Phil L
Thank you and I wish you good luck. Determination is always the first big step to success.
Drinking age in UK is not that simple.
Children under 5 must not be given alcohol unless under medical supervision or in an emergency - 1933 Act.
Legally permissible for ages 5-17 to drink alcohol at home or at a friend's house with the permission of parent or legal guardian.
People aged 16 or 17 may consume wine, beer or cider but not other alcohol, i.e. spirits etc, on licensed premises when ordered with a meal - in England & Wales an adult must order (in UK age of majority is 18); in Scotland an adult doesn't have to be present to order alcohol with a meal.
The legal age for the purchase of alcohol from an off-licence (store/supermarket) is now 18, recent times rules were different regarding cider but since 60s/70s laws have been tightened.
Persons under 18 drinking alcohol in public can be stopped, fined or arrested by the police.
The legal age to buy liqueur chocolates is 16.
Purchasing alcohol on behalf of a minor is illegal in all of the United Kingdom. This means acting as the young person's agent.
Drinking age in UK is not that simple.
Children under 5 must not be given alcohol unless under medical supervision or in an emergency - 1933 Act.
Legally permissible for ages 5-17 to drink alcohol at home or at a friend's house with the permission of parent or legal guardian.
People aged 16 or 17 may consume wine, beer or cider but not other alcohol (e.g. spirits, sherry, port, cocktails, liqueurs etc) on licensed premises when ordered with a meal - in England & Wales an adult must order (in UK age of majority is 18); in Scotland an adult doesn't have to be present to order alcohol with a meal.
The legal age for the purchase of alcohol from an off-licence (store/supermarket) is now 18, recent times rules were different regarding cider but since 60s/70s laws have been tightened.
Persons under 18 drinking alcohol in public can be stopped, fined or arrested by the police.
The legal age to buy liqueur chocolates is 16.
Purchasing alcohol on behalf of a minor is illegal in all of the United Kingdom. This means acting as the young person's agent.
Actually, I would view a club using liquid nitrogen as several differently fatal accidents waiting to happen.
Liquid nitrogen is extremely nasty stuff. It is intensely cold (it boils at minus 196 celcius), it expands in volume tremendously when it boils, and as a low-temperature gas very close to air in density, it displaces the oxy-nitrogen mix we breathe very, very easily.
All some utter muppet needs to do to create a death-trap is store several dewar flasks of the stuff in a cellar. Dewars store liquid nitrogen, but nitrogen always evaporates off them, so you end up with a layer of cold gas sitting in whatever room they are stored in.
Give it a few hours and if the cellar isn't well-ventilated with a powerful extractor fan venting to the outside, you end up with a room full of cold nitrogen and not much oxygen.
Humans cannot sense low oxygen. Diving mammals like mink and otters can, people can't. In low oxygen conditions people simply walk in, bumble about then keel over unconscious. So do responding paramedics if they don't know about low-oxygen environments. As an aside, ALL facilities which use helium, nitrogen, argon and similar oxygen-displacing gases are required by law to have regularly serviced low-oxygen alarms fitted.
These pubs are likely to be unwittingly breaching several H & S regulations and creating death-traps for their staff. Watch it out there!
Its not only the creative marketing, its the way people just open their throats and pour the alcohol straight into their stomachs. Drinking to get drunk. I wonder if that was how the nitrogen girl managed to do so much harm to herself.
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