DarkJedi

Beverage-grade alcohol in products like mouthwash, cough syrup and vanilla extract escapes the regulations intended for distilled sprits, beer and wine because "no reasonable person" would consume those products, said Martha Tebbenkamp of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Because these products are not intended as a substitute for vodka and gin, they’re not regulated as such.

But on the rocks with a splash of club soda, antiseptic Equate and Wild Turkey are pretty much created equal. Mouthwash is no different than any other form of alcohol, said Ken Bizovi, a toxicologist with the Northwest branch of Poison Control. It has the same ethanol as beer, wine or hard liquor, and the health effects are the same, he said.

That’s news to Jennifer, who works the Pfizer group help line. That’s the number on the back of a Listerine bottle. "I’ve never heard of anyone becoming intoxicated on Listerine," she said. "The most I’ve ever heard of is people getting a tummy-ache."

Besides, Jennifer said, the alcohol in Listerine is denatured. In other words, chemicals are added to make it poisonous and undrinkable.

Tell that to Listerine Gene.

When Joseph Lawrence and Jordan Wheat Lambert developed the original, amber-colored Listerine in 1879, it was designed as a disinfectant for surgical procedures. By 1895 the duo had discovered that Listerine also killed germs in the mouth. That same year, they began selling it to dentists, paving the way for a flood of other brands.

Listerine’s maker, Warner-Lambert, merged with Pfizer in June of 2000. In 2001, the Pfizer Consumer Healthcare division – its mouthwash division – saw a 4 percent increase in sales, to $2.4 billion. Listerine is its largest product line.

Many people who abuse mouthwash "really have a taste for it," said Piper Warren, the head detox nurse at the Clitheroe Center/Substance Abuse Treatment Facility, in Anchorage. It’s a tough detox, she said. "Most people who we’ve seen who have been on it have died."

The problem isn’t new. In the early 1990s, alcoholics on an Indian reservation in Gallup, New Mexico turned to mouthwash on Sundays, when the sale of alcohol was prohibited. Mouthwash abuse spiraled out of control – merchants had to drag out black tarps and garbage bags to cover their supplies each weekend. The general manager of TG&Y Coast to Coast, a general merchandise store, eliminated large displays of mouthwash after someone was found dead near his store with a bottle of TG&Y brand mouthwash next to the body. That manager also trained clerks to refuse to sell any alcohol-containing products to people who seemed intoxicated.

In 1999, a man in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin was arrested for abandoning his son in a restaurant after drinking a quart of Listerine. Police found him passed out in the back seat of his car and took him to jail. Three hours after his arrest, he registered a blood alcohol level of .264. That’s more than three times the legal limit for driving in Alaska.

Kitty Dukakis, wife of Michael Dukakis, wrote in her book "Now You Know" that she drank aftershave, vanilla extract, nail polish remover and mouthwash before she finally sought help for her alcoholism.

At Homeward Bound, a long-term drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility in Anchorage, workers see mouthwash intoxication every day, said counselor Jennifer Nieves. "If I see someone on the street with it and I am familiar with them, I take it away and pour it out," she said.

Holloway, of APD, said he’d like to see stores such as the Midtown Wal-Mart and Northway Kmart put mouthwash in places that are not easily accessible, as the store manager in New Mexico did. But the stores "are afraid of racial or social implications," he said.

The manager of the Midtown Wal-Mart could not be reached for comment. A woman who identified herself as the assistant manager, but refused to give her name, said she would not comment on the sale of mouthwash to inebriates. But, she said, "We don’t discriminate against any of our customers."

Northway Kmart manager Bob Newbry was more forthcoming. He said cashiers at his store have been told not to sell mouthwash to inebriates. Lately the store has also taken steps to stem the problem by issuing trespass orders to nuisance customers and calling police if the person returns, he said. "We don’t lock (mouthwash) up or anything, it’s over by the pharmacy," he said, but employees now keep their eyes open for any unusual activity.

The Northway Kmart has sold 84 1.5-liter bottles of antiseptic Listerine and 274 bottles of the generic brand, American Fare, so far this year. That doesn’t include product that’s been stolen, a common method of procurement for mouthwash abusers, Newbry said. Those are unusually high sales figures when you consider that the liter bottle is the more common choice for non-guzzling mouthwash users, he said.

In the early evening of August 8, in a trash can across the street from the Gambell Street Carrs, small "shooter" sized bottles of Monarch Vodka and Bacardi Rum shared space with crushed, empty cans of Natural Ice. Underneath a potato chip bag was a lone, empty bottle of Listerine.

"The people out here live to eat, drink and pass out," said APD Officer Pablo Paiz. "It’s like pushing a boulder up the hill one day and having it roll back down the next – it’s frustrating."

Paiz has dealt with countless chronic inebriates in his 12 years with APD. For the last eight years he’s been a patrol officer, and before that he was in dispatch. He’s seen people drink vanilla, hairspray and mouthwash – virtually anything containing alcohol to feed an addiction, he said.

"Usually by the time I get to them they will have discarded whatever they are drinking. But sometimes they’ll have a bottle of mouthwash or Monarch tucked up their sleeve. I found one guy walking down the street with six bottles of vanilla in his pocket… I said, ‘What are you doing, baking a cake?’"

Statistics for mouthwash abuse in Anchorage are elusive because police say they can’t isolate them from other instances of public inebriation. But Paiz says it’s been "an ongoing, steady thing" for at least eight years. And, he said, recent alcohol restrictions in Fairview – at stores like Brown Jug and the Gambell Street Oaken Keg – have likely spurred consumption of alcohol substitutes.

So is mouthwash to vodka what bathtub gin was to booze during prohibition? What crack is to cocaine?

"I don’t believe so," said Ruth Moulton, a Fairview Community Council member and an active player in Fairview’s recent alcohol regulations. "People have been drinking mouthwash for years. I remember years ago people asking stores to move it because it was being shoplifted, and that was before the restrictions."

Mouthwash is thymol, eucalyptol, methyl salicylate, menthol and alcohol. It’s 22 cents an ounce, and easier to drink than Final Net, Sterno or nail polish remover. It’s been shown to help prevent plaque accumulation and get people like Listerine Gene blotto and minty. And on Anchorage streets, it’s vividly colored proof of an ancient maxim: where there’s a will, there’s a way.