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Swedish teenagers are using hand sanitiser to get drunk

Swedish teenagers are using hand sanitiser to get drunk

Bottles of alcoholic hand sanitiser are only sold over the counter in some pharmacies in Sweden because teenagers in the country are using them to get drunk.

You have to be 20-years-old to buy alcohol from government-owned off licenses in Sweden and 18 in a bar or restaurant.

But, as police spokesman Stefan Sund, in Karlskoga, told Sveriges Radio:

Young people have been coming to hospital with alcohol poisoning.

Hand sanitisers can contain something like 85 per cent alcohol.

As the BBC points out, the problem is not exclusive to the Scandinavian country. Some hospitals in the UK have had to remove gels from reception areas "in a bid to stop visitors drinking it".

More: Drunken monkey armed with a knife downs a glass of rum, chases drinkers away from bar

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