A recent Maryland "drinking" incident has prison officials in a lather about the abuse potential of alcohol-based hand sanitizers.

The Washington Post reported Feb. 1 that a prison inmate got drunk and aggressive after drinking from a gallon container of Purell hand cleaner, which is 70 percent alcohol. The incident not only raised concerns within prison walls but also about teens possibly misusing alcohol-based products.

"The widespread use of hand sanitizer is fraught with a great deal of danger," said Suzanne Doyon, medical director of the Maryland Poison Center, which has received about a half-dozen other reports of people drinking hand sanitizers to get drunk. "From an infection-control perspective they are excellent. But there is this risk involved."

Doyton said that use of alcohol-based santizers should be controlled in prisons, rehab programs, and hospitals.

The Maryland prison incident was detailed in the Feb. 1, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Hospital tests showed the inmate's blood-alcohol level to be .33 percent.