Alcohol inhaler revolutionizes drinking

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Greensboro, North Carolina, company is selling what it calls a "low-calorie, low-carbohydrate way to consume alcohol" that allows a person to consume spirits and truthfully say he has not been drinking.

Alcohol Without Liquid - AWOL - is a bulky, costly machine that vaporizes a mixture of liquor and oxygen and pumps it through a tube to a hand-held medical-style inhaler which the user puts in his or her mouth and breaths in a mist of scotch, vodka, or any other type of hard liquor.

"Alcohol enters the bloodstream through the lungs rather than the stomach, making AWOL low calorie and low carbohydrate," explained Kevin Morse, president of Spirit Partners, Inc., the US manufacturer-distributor.

"The resulting feeling is the same sense of well being an adult gets from consuming alcohol in the traditional manner, only milder," he said.

If your intention is to get drunk fast, AWOL will slow you way down. It takes about 20 minutes to inhale the equivalent of one shot of alcohol, said company officials.

"It is not something people are going to get very drunk on," said Morse.

And, the device won't help you beat a drunk driving rap.

"One of the ways alcohol leaves the body is through the mouth," Morse said. "Therefore, the alcohol will definitely register on the breathalyzer."

But, when "used responsibly," he added, "there is no evidence to indicate greater risks from using AWOL than consuming alcohol in the traditional way."

Consumers "should not drive or operate any type of machinery after using AWOL," he advises.

And minimum drinking age laws apply.

Morse's company produces the machine on license from the British patent holder. His target customers are clubs, bars, lounges - places where people normally go to drink.

The AWOL machine weighs 60 pounds (27 kgs) and costs 3,000 dollars for the two-user model and 3,700 dollars for the four-user model.