About 10 years ago, around SARS, a public health friend in Toronto said that hospitals were having trouble keeping sanitizer units filled in public wards and emergency rooms. Seemed that people with an alcohol dependency and little cash were stealing and drinking it. Around the same time I was told a similar story about stuff missing from a farmer’s hygiene tool storage area: When the temporary labor left the farm, so did the sanitizer. 

Last year Alberta health folks changed their policies around providing hand sanitizer following the death of a man in an RCMP cell who was suspected of ingesting some, along with anti-depressants, while at a hospital.

According to Perez Hilton, a Pennsylvania man copped to being a repeat acquirer of large amounts of free sanitizer for drinks.

A man in Pennsylvania has admitted to stealing 12 bottles of hand sanitizer from the UPMC Hospital in Altoona.

The man, 51-year-old Lee Ammerman, was caught because an employee saw him stealing a bottle in October when he tried to hide it in an arm sling AND then recognized him doing it again in December!

BUT, get this, when confronted by cops about stealing the sanitizer, Lee didn’t even deny it!

In fact, he confessed to what he was actually using it for! (why so many exclamation marks? -ben)

He said: “I mix the liquid with orange juice.”

With the increase in publicly-available alcohol-based sanitizer comes the unintended consequence of being a target for theft.