ShareThisVodka-soaked candies are the latest method kids are using to get drunk.
That's the warning being sent to hundreds of schools and police agencies, asking them to watch for kids getting drunk by eating Gummi bears soaked in vodka.
The vodka is odorless and, depending how much booze is used, the bears maintain their relative shape, making it difficult to spot them at sports games, at dances or even in classrooms.
In the past month, warnings about the Gummi bear threat have gone out in Minnesota -- from the state Health Department, the Hennepin County Regional Poison Center and the Dakota County Attorney's office.
When Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom sent out a warning to schools about the bears in mid-October, "they were as surprised as I was," he said. "They were as alarmed as I was."
Jay Jaffee, chemical health coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health, said the drunken Gummi bears phenomenon is gaining traction through the Internet, with how-to videos and YouTube clips readily available to anyone.
"The Internet gives things life," he said. "Kids are drinking way more than their parents. It's the difference between having dial up and broadband."
The boozy bears are but the latest example of kids ingesting alcohol in ways that might surprise or shock adults, say authorities who monitor the drinking habits of youth.
In the past few months, reports have also surfaced nationally of kids -- boys and girls -- inserting vodka-soaked tampons into their bodies, funneling booze into their rectums and even placing open liquor bottles against their corneas in a practice known as "eyeballing," or absorbing booze through the blood vessels in the eye. All are ways to absorb alcohol through the skin, bypassing the digestive system and getting the alcohol straight to the bloodstream.
"People are capable of doing any number of crazy things," Jaffee said. "I don't think that it is everywhere, but I suspect that there is somebody somewhere who is trying some of this."
Jaffee said the Gummi bears and drinking games such as Edward Fortyhands (where a 40-ounce bottle of beer is taped to a each hand) are no laughing matter. He and others warn that such activities mask the destructive nature of alcohol.
He notes that studies show Minnesota is among the top five states for binge drinking, neck and neck with Wisconsin, Iowa and the two Dakotas.
Dr. Dan Quan of the Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix had not heard of so-called drunken Gummi bears. But as an emergency room doctor, he is familiar with the use of vodka-infused tampons.
A couple years ago, he said, the daughter of a nurse reported that a friend passed out at her high school from alcohol poisoning after inserting a vodka-soaked tampon.
"It's probably more widespread than we think," Quan said. "The effects are pretty quick. The vaginal walls are pretty thin. The biggest problem is that if they do pass out, we don't know where to look."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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