Alcohol is a big part of college culture—and there are ways to enjoy drinking safely. But a new trend has popped up that is seriously dangerous. You might have heard of anecdotal cases or news segments about unorthodox ways of getting drunk: soaking tampons in alcohol, “butt chugging,” and putting alcohol in your eyes, for example. The newest crazy way people are getting buzzed? Smoking alcohol. We talked to Dr. Gerald Frye, a professor of neurotoxicology and neuropharmacology at the Texas A&M Health Science Center, for the lowdown on smoking alcohol.
What is smoking alcohol and why is it becoming popular?
You can smoke alcohol (usually vodka) if you create vapor out of the liquid and then inhale it. There are a few ways to do this: usually, this is done using dry ice, which turns the ethanol in alcohol into vapor, but some people also have used glass vials over an open flame. Basically, your pour alcohol either over dry ice or heat it over fire. Both methods create alcoholic vapor, which you can inhale through your nose or mouth.
Smoking alcohol is becoming popular because it can make you drunk incredibly quickly, and people believe that it’s lower in calories than actually drinking. According to Dr. Frye, this “trend” is nowhere close to an epidemic at this point, but it is something that is on college students’ radars. Mariah, a sophomore at Virginia State University, says she’s heart about smoking alcohol, and she’s “pretty sure once school starts again people are going to do it. That is probably the dumbest thing. I feel like someone is going to try to take it a step further and hurt themselves.” Vanessa, a junior at Johns Hopkins University, agrees. “I would definitely never do it,” she says. “It seems unnatural and looks like it could do way more harm than good.”
How does it work?
When you drink a shot of alcohol, it filters through your stomach and liver, taking approximately 30 minutes to an hour to go through your system fully. When you smoke alcohol, you’re effectively bypassing that process by sending the alcohol immediately to your lungs, brain, and eventually your bloodstream, resulting in a more intense and faster buzz.
And as for the calorie-free myth? Not completely true. “Ethanol [the active ingredient in alcohol] itself does have calories, even if you inhale it,” Dr. Frye says. “If you usually drink alcohol with lots of added sugars [like flavored alcohol or sugary cocktails], then smoking alcohol is obviously going to [provide] significantly less calories. But the calories are still there.”
The dangers of smoking alcohol
Alcohol, in general, can be a dangerous substance and should be only used in moderation if you don’t want to deal with serious health effects. However, smoking alcohol is a whole other level of risk. According to Dr. Frye, here are the top reasons why you shouldn’t smoke it:
- Dry ice and flames. “Handling dry ice can burn you and be a hazard,” Dr. Frye says. Same goes for the open flame method (where you create vapor by steaming a glass of alcohol over the fire). Especially when you factor in the clumsiness that can come with being drunk, handling materials like this is a bad idea overall.
- You’re bypassing your body’s safety mechanisms. Nausea and throwing up are two of the ways your body protects you from becoming too drunk. These roadblocks let your body know that you’ve had too much alcohol and that you should stop drinking. With smoking alcohol, “you’re more susceptible to overdoing it,” Dr. Frye says. Since the alcohol is bypassing the liver and stomach and going straight to the brain, you’re less likely to realize when you’ve had too much in time, especially since smoking alcohol gets you drunk faster than usual. Meaning, you’ll end up consuming way more than you might normally. The risk for overdose with smoking alcohol is significant.
- Mixing methods. When you’re smoking alcohol at a party, it can be tough to know how much you’ve actually had. However, it’s even more dangerous when you mix two methods of getting drunk, Dr. Frye says. Say you smoked some alcohol and then went back to drinking it—how can you know much you’ve really had unless you specifically measured what you were inhaling? You really can’t, unless you’re being super precise—which you probably won’t be at a party. This method makes it easier for you to overdose.
- Nasal damage. “If it’s a high concentration of alcohol, you can do damage to the nasal and oral cavities,” says Dr. Frye. You know how vodka burns on the way down? Think of that burning sensation, just through your nose. If you were to regularly smoke alcohol, you could cause harm to your nose if you inhale it, rather than breathe it through your mouth.
- Severe internal damage. Intense alcohol consumption is dangerous regardless of the method, but because of the quick increase of the alcohol in your bloodstream, smoking alcohol can cause damage more severely and faster than drinking it. “Liver damage, throat cancer, not to mention the quick increase in brain level (percentage of alcohol in brain tissues) could result in more brain damage [than drinking],” says Dr. Frye.
Of course, all alcohol consumption regardless of method carries risks if abused, but smoking alcohol is more intense and a faster way to get drunk. Smoking alcohol has a high risk for overdose; so if you want consume alcohol, HC advises skipping this method altogether.