Sten Gazette

Five minutes after we congratulate the Colorado legislature for moving to eliminate a “blue law” we find they are poised to introduce another one.

Colorado is considering (and will likely pass, since the state has a one-party legislature) a ban on the latest technological advance in alcohol consumption, the so-called AWOL device. AWOL is the nickname of the “Alcohol Without Liquid” machine which vaporizes an alcohol beverage, then mixes it with oxygen for inhalation. This method of alcohol consumption is said to reduce the effects of hangover, and… it’s low-carb!

Imagine getting drunk without drinking! Well, that’s a problem for a lot of legislators.

According to Colorado State Senator Bob Hagedorn (D. Aurora) “An AWOL device is to alcohol what a crack pipe is to cocaine.” Accordingly, Senate Bill 34 prohibits the sale, purchase, or use of an AWOL device, period. If you find some way to get one without breaking the law, it’s illegal to use it in your own home.

In New York, where you can’t legally smoke a cigarette in a bar (nor crack neither, one presumes) you can use the AWOL device, but a bartender can’t sell more than three “shots” to a customer.

Here’s how it works– an “AWOL shot contains about half an ordinary shot of alcohol. The oxygen rich vapor is inhaled through a mouthpipe over the course of about twenty minutes. The makers of the machine say this is a limiting factor which in many cases will actually slow-down or limit the consumption of alcohol. At the same time they are marketing it as “The Ultimate Party Toy! (emphasis theirs). It’s a new and more efficient way to get drunk, and there might very well be some health benefits. AWOL USA’s Home Page

Factors not readily apparent in the discussion of the device include the effects of oxygen, which, when inhaled in greater concentrations than normally found in the atmosphere, provides a feeling of euphoria often described as a “high.” And yes, recreational breathing of oxygen is banned in many states. Oddly, similar feelings of euphoria result from oxygen deprivation. Which in fact is how alcohol works. Alcohol in the bloodstream (whether it gets there through the stomach or the lungs) is oxidized, reducing the amount of oxygen that gets to the brain. A reduction in the amount of oxygen available to the brain is called “hypoxia,” and when hypoxia is caused by alcohol it is called “toxic hypoxia,” recognizing that alcohol can be a poison. You probably knew it was a poison, but not how it actually works.

Hagedorn’s comment comparing the AWOL device to a crack pipe is hysterical in both senses of the word– irrational overreaction, but also very funny. Given that “ordinary” cocaine is inhaled, the crack pipe is really just a different vehicle. If anything, the shot-glass is the alcoholic’s equivalent of the crack pipe.

The problem with inhaling alcohol is that it removes any pretense that you are trying to do anything other than become intoxicated. In the consumption of alcohol in any of its traditional liquid forms, you can always pretend that the alcohol is just an ingredient in a beverage, or that the “mild intoxication” that occurs with “social drinking” is a side-effect of a harmless indulgence. Evidently a lot of prudes and blue-noses need to maintain that fiction in order to justify their own participation, but of course many bars specialize in extreme forms of alcohol ingestion where there is no pretense of sociability.

If you can make the big leap to understanding that it is intoxication itself which is the goal, along with the resulting uninhibited behavior, then the method of ingestion must be irrelevant. We find the idea of the AWOL device vaguely distasteful, and we can’t imagine how sitting in one spot with a reverse breathalyzer tube in your mouth for twenty minutes can add anything to a party. Unless its usefulness as a “party toy” is making somebody shut up for a while.

Ultimately, the AWOL machine promotes solitary or anti-social behavior. AWOL might survive briefly as a fad, like perfectly legal but equally distasteful “body shots” and “dribble shots.” We predict that it will self-destruct pretty rapidly, with or without new blue laws.

–SG

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 29th, 2005 at 9:14 pm and is filed under Law and the Courts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.