Today I was reading the Spare Change newspaper and on the front page was an article about whether drinking Listerine is poisonous. Initially, I thought the article was going to be about the recent link made between cancer and alcohol-based mouthwash (oral hygiene fever has swept through the Singaporean grad students at Harvard after a bunch of us suddenly got struck by cavities and/or weak gums), but as I read on, I realized that when it said “drinking”, it really meant it in a literal sense.
The situation is as such (and I am lifting this from the article):
2) To combat the side-effects of alcohol withdrawal, when beverage alcohol and detoxification are not options, homeless alcoholics often turn to alternative means to ease their suffering, and the consumption of mouthwash to this ends is nothing new.
3) Most mouthwashes have one thing in common: they are comprised of 20-30% alcohol, making them approximately 50-proof alcoholic beverages when consumed as such.
4) Whether or not there are long term side-effects from ingesting mouthwash is debatable, but the pressing issue is the advanced degree of alcoholism in the person consuming them.
So what’s the point I’m trying to make? Many of us justify not giving money to people on the street by telling ourselves that these people will probably use the money to buy drugs or alcohol. Once upon a time, I asked John Donahue, the late executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, what our response to panhandlers should be. He said that one way you make a contribution and know where it’s going is by purchasing CTA cards (for Chicago) or MBTA tokens (for Boston). But there are times when the person just really needs a smoke, or a drink for that matter. Of course, there is no prescribed solution as to what to do in each situation, but the point he was trying to make was that we shouldn’t be too quick to judge what’s best for someone else, because we may very well not know what’s best.
Having said that, I am not advocating that you should usher an alcoholic into a bar, although this study suggests that that might not be as crazy as it sounds. All I’m trying to say is that the problem of homelessness is not as straight-forward as many of us like to think. Just try sleeping outside for a change. I tried that once as part of The Giving Tree’s “Sleepout on the Quads” a couple of years ago, and that experience certainly put things in perspective. Despite having a reasonably think coat, I was literally freezing… and this was in spring. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to be homeless during the winter.
p/s: If anyone does read the study, do let me know what you think.
3 comments:
One thing to note is that not all mouthwashes contain only ethyl alchohol. Some may contain propanol or even methanol. Even in trace amounts too small to be of concern to FDA, the other alcohols may build up to toxic levels.
Some alcoholics have been known to chug rubbing alcohol (isopropanol) to get the kick, only to end up blind or with severe liver damage.
Indeed, non-beverage alcohol is denatured to pervent it from being widely consumed. This denaturing could involve chemicals such as formaldehyde or methanol, but in the case of mouthwashes like Listerine, the chemicals used are usually eucalyptol, menthol and thymol.
Since we're on the subject, do not purchase the new Crest Pro-Health Rinse. It's alcohol-free and all that, but it tastes really bad, plus it leaves an after-taste that lasts till the next day (and beyond, if you didn't rinse your mouth with water after rinsing with the mouthwash). I'd much rather the alcohol sting :P
Post a Comment