Liquor Taxi is a familiar concept among many older children in Oslo. Children that are 13 years old are customers and acquire without much difficulties liquor( or what they believe to be liquor) that may prove be fatal, NRK reports
– To get a liquor taxi is very easy, as easy as ordering a pizza. It is harder to enter a store and buy beer, for then you must have false credentials or know someone who is 18 years, pupils at Hartvig Nissen High School say to NRK. All of them are over 18 years, but are familiar with the phenomenon.
Both the casualty department and the police are worried about the consequences of this. Doctor Odd Martin Vallersnes says the scary thing about liquor is that you quickly get intoxicated and that it is difficult to calculate how greatly affected you are by the liquor.
– Another scary things about the liquor taxi is that they never know where the booze is coming from and this means that there is risk that they instead of liquor, get methanol, and this is very dangerous to consume,” Vallersnes says.
Methanol is very toxic and even small doses can lead to blindness or death. It is difficult to distinguish between methanol and normal spirits. They have the same appearance, smell and taste. If you drink methanol you will start to get ill about a day after you got drunk. Then you will experience headache, induced vomiting, abdominal pain and strong thirst, and a typical complication is, as previously mentioned blindness.
Several people have lost their lives as a result of methanol poisoning in recent years. In 2001 and 2002 at least 18 people died having drunk illegal liquor that proved to be methanol. Several smugglers of liquor were sentenced to long prison terms in 2005 for involuntary manslaughter and murder.
