Doctors warn against craze of inhaling alcohol

WASHINGTON – It’s a new way to get drunk that is becoming more popular among people who want to drink, but don’t want the extra calories. But it has doctors concerned.

Instead of drinking wine or beer, they are smoking their alcohol.

Broderic Allen stopped drinking to help him lose 80 pounds. Now he smokes his alcohol by pouring it over dry ice and inhaling it.

Alcohol smokers feel the effects of the booze immediately and Dr. Walter Gaman says that is not safe.

“It goes right through your lungs, hits your blood stream and goes right to your brain,” Gaman says.

Time Magazine reports the alcohol bypasses the stomach and the liver.

Those physical filters keep drinkers from getting sick and let your body know when you’ve had too much. So inhaling alcohol makes users more susceptible to alcohol poisoning or overdose, the article says.

Both Allen and Gaman were featured on KCTV in Kansas City, Mo.

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