What just happened?

May 9, 2012 7:25 PM

Get drunk, for a second. The “Wahh Quantum Sensations”, a gadget invented by David Edwards and designed by Philippe Starck, contains 21 sprays which pulverizes each 0.075 ml of alcohol in your mouth, the minimum amount to stimulate your brain. A single spray provides a very short feeling of intoxication.
posted by davebush (80 comments total)

This is either utterly stupid or totally brilliant. I'll continue to get drunk the old fashioned way.
posted by jonmc at 7:29 PM on May 9, 2012 [5 favorites]

I don't buy it. Binaca has alcohol in it and I used to buy it as a kid.

Even if you were using it as in inhalant I don't see it.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:36 PM on May 9, 2012

So assuming this is undiluted, this is equivalent to about 1/25 of a shot of vodka or whatnot.

I have to say I am a little skeptical.
posted by aubilenon at 7:40 PM on May 9, 2012

I remember going to a club in San Francisco back in '04 or '05 that served vaporized vodka shots. This seems like the same thing.
posted by KGMoney at 7:40 PM on May 9, 2012

Some idiot is going to use this as an enema, I bet.
posted by jonmc at 7:41 PM on May 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

These guys re-branded common breath freshener spray as a party drug and moved it from $1 to $25 a bottle. Bravo you rogues.
posted by humanfont at 7:45 PM on May 9, 2012 [10 favorites]

Wasn't this the spray the Lone Gunmen used on Scully?
posted by The Whelk at 7:46 PM on May 9, 2012

Metafilter: Some idiot is going to use this as an enema, I bet.
posted by mhoye at 7:49 PM on May 9, 2012 [12 favorites]

This is flat out ridiculous. Every aspect of it.
posted by odinsdream at 7:52 PM on May 9, 2012

If I'm going to get intoxicated it had better be for three or four hours at least. I mean, what do you do the rest of the night?
posted by desjardins at 7:52 PM on May 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

This is flat out ridiculous. Every aspect of it.

Which is why it was popular in San Fransisco in the early 00s.
posted by The Whelk at 7:52 PM on May 9, 2012 [6 favorites]

These are the same guys who created the 'AeroShot' (aerosoled caffeine) and 'Le Whif' (aerosoled chocolate).
posted by WalterMitty at 7:53 PM on May 9, 2012

Look people, you're weaponizing the wrong thing, get me some cropdusters and some airborne MDMA and maybe we can start replacing war with dancing.
posted by The Whelk at 7:56 PM on May 9, 2012 [30 favorites]

Ordinarily when you drink alcohol, a very tiny amount is absorbed directly into the capillaries of the oral mucosae and reaches the brain directly, and the bulk of it enters via the digestive system and undergoes partial breakdown in the liver before the dose enters the part of the circulation serving the brain (this is called the "first pass effect"). Essentially this product minimizes the amount of alcohol you need to use to achieve that direct absorption effect. It's basically just like swooshing-and-spitting Everclear but dressed up with fancy molecular gastronomy words.
posted by gingerest at 7:59 PM on May 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oh, I'm sure this stuff works great. The same way, if you've ever taken fake acid, you can spend a cheerful hour or two totally convinced it's starting to kick in.

By comparison, "a touch of euphoria" that "only lasts a second" seems like a trivially easy state to placebo yourself into.
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:59 PM on May 9, 2012 [11 favorites]

Indeed, this is completely shortsighted. It's 2012, I demand more fascinating futuredrugs.

*sets phaser to bake*
posted by The Whelk at 8:03 PM on May 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

pepshi blooHEY whattar YEW lookin at ... hey, wow, that was wierd
posted by not_on_display at 8:04 PM on May 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

That's not even enough time for me to post an ill advised rant on Metafilter.


Worthless.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:05 PM on May 9, 2012 [11 favorites]

the minimum amount to stimulate your brain

I've been doing this all wrong.

I usually go for the maximum.

I just drank 10 five hour energy drinks. Either I'll be awake for 50 hours, or I'll be ten times more awake for 5 hours. I'll let you know.
posted by twoleftfeet at 8:06 PM on May 9, 2012 [6 favorites]

I wish you could do five-hour energy drinks in parallel instead of in series. "I'm gonna be productive at ten man-hours-per-minute for the next thirty seconds! Take that, term paper!"
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:09 PM on May 9, 2012 [9 favorites]

where's your imagination, folks? - what you do is get drunk first and THEN blow your brains out with this

and puke - of course
posted by pyramid termite at 8:23 PM on May 9, 2012

after which, you can call a WAAHmbulance
posted by pyramid termite at 8:26 PM on May 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

As noted above, repeated just for clarity, "a touch of euphoria" that "only lasts a second" is pretty much exactly the experience provided by existing breath spritzers.
posted by Edogy at 8:27 PM on May 9, 2012

Try drunk dialing on this and you won't even get a carrier tone before you sober up. Meh.
posted by mosk at 8:28 PM on May 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Huh. I guess "ten man-hours-per-minute" would be "six hundred men." Maybe that's why that five-hour energy shit never does anything for me. There isn't room in my office for more than two or three of me at once.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:28 PM on May 9, 2012

Abusing the word "quantum" for bogus scientific cachet... isn't that a little, oh, 2004? I have to note the page for the product doesn't make any dubious claims for how you are supposed to get any kind of drunk on less than a tenth of a milliliter of alcohol for even the briefest length of time... rather it promises an (ahem) "gustatory and olfactory sensation".

Meanwhile gosh the details sure are sparse on the "unique and scientific aerosol process" that supposedly sets this apart, which considering the fact that it sure looks like pretty much the bog standard "pressurized contents forced through a little hole" process.

You know what a micro-dosed aerosol delivery system would be just super for though? Fucking LSD, man. Somebody keep me posted on that.
posted by nanojath at 8:32 PM on May 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

This is flat out ridiculous. Every aspect of it.

Which is why it was popular in San Fransisco in the early 00s.

And thus I remain confident that this amazing new product will be as effective in achieving its advertised end as smart drinks were. I mean, who needed drugs once you'd had a smart drink?
posted by philip-random at 8:33 PM on May 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I for one, am glad to see some research on new party drugs. As Stanhope says, the only new drugs in the last 20 years have been mood stabilizers.
posted by sfts2 at 8:34 PM on May 9, 2012

I just drank 10 five hour energy drinks. Either I'll be awake for 50 hours, or I'll be ten times more awake for 5 hours. I'll let you know.

That...wouldn't be smart. Not sure if your heart would actually burst, but you'd probably get caffeine intoxication and need a new pair of pants.

Come to think of it, this Wahh spray sounds like something that could be easily abused. If it only lasts for a few seconds there's going to be a lot of people spraying the whole bottle into their mouths.
posted by Kevin Street at 8:36 PM on May 9, 2012

Part of the beauty of an alcohol buzz is that it comes on incrementally. This misses the point chemically.
posted by jonmc at 8:41 PM on May 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've been cautioning my friends about giving even a sliver of credence to this garbage. Utter nonsense and everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 8:45 PM on May 9, 2012

"At last I've given the world what it needs...a good ten cent drunk!"
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:50 PM on May 9, 2012

(gah, the embed apparently won't take you to the right scene...click through to the youtube page or fast-forward to 1h28m for the relevant scene)
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:52 PM on May 9, 2012

I found this link from alcohol enema to google to Darwin awards. It's a wonder we haven't blown ourselves up yet with hydrogen bombs as stupid as people can be.
posted by bukvich at 8:54 PM on May 9, 2012

Yeah, this is pretty ridiculous marketing bullshit. You'll catch more of a buzz from using mouthwash or a blast of breath freshener.

These molecular gastronomy sprays are basically just overdesigned packaging and compressed air at a premium price just for the sake of a disposable novelty. I figure that these guys are just cashing in on lame attempts at novelty and disposable incomes. I'm guessing that they already tapped out the shallow "I'll buy that at least once because I'm either an idiot or I have twenty bucks I don't want to give to someone hungry" market for the aerosol caffeine and chocolate they released already.

The fact that these products actually exist is making me extremely angry. Like we need more disposable, useless-when-used-as-intended plastic garbage in the world, yet these overwrought self-indulgent shitheels are literally micropackaging compressed air and a few droplets of booze with some industrial flavorings and they have the enormously distended, hairy balls to call it "gastronomy" and "design".

You want to experience a quick gastronomic buzz? Go eat a nasturtium.

Have a deep need to experience a pre-packaged emotion available on demand for purchase? Give me five bucks and flip a coin and I'll either kiss you on the mouth or slap you across the face.

"The WA|HH is a modern and intelligent alternative aligned with our own evolution, as one of the clear signs of part of the intelligent human production is dematerialization"

What? Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

Seriously, Mr. Starck? That doesn't even make a lick of sense, except perhaps to broadcast that you're so far out of touch with what 'intelligence' or 'human' actually are that I'm suddenly worried that lizard people are actually real and you're actually some kind of Illuminati spook.
posted by loquacious at 8:57 PM on May 9, 2012 [7 favorites]

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

...uh, what? Is this the whiffed alcohol talking or am I missing a joke.
posted by Doleful Creature at 9:08 PM on May 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Both or the latter.

Take your pick.
posted by notyou at 9:14 PM on May 9, 2012

Part of the beauty of an alcohol buzz is that it comes on incrementally.

That, and it comes as a result of drinking the most delicious beverages, one after another. This is missing the point.
posted by Hoopo at 9:22 PM on May 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

"Go eat a nasturtium" is my new favorite way to tell someone off.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:24 PM on May 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

I don't really understand the benefits of a minimal amount of intoxication, but maybe for some people it's the best way to go. I imagine micro-alcoholics, their lives only slightly ruined by their habit, lying on the floor, or maybe a chair, their minds moderately swirling, the floor around them littered by two or three of those little bottles they serve on airplanes.
posted by twoleftfeet at 9:31 PM on May 9, 2012 [6 favorites]

The fact that these products actually exist is making me extremely angry. Like we need more disposable, useless-when-used-as-intended plastic garbage in the world, yet these overwrought self-indulgent shitheels are literally micropackaging compressed air and a few droplets of booze with some industrial flavorings and they have the enormously distended, hairy balls to call it "gastronomy" and "design".

You know, loquacious, sometimes I just want to hug you. One of those slightly uncomfortably clingy lasts-maybe-a-little-too-long-but-not-so-long-that-it-becomes-decidedly-weird hugs.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:45 PM on May 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

I have invented spray fugu, it numbs your lips and gives you a feeling of superiority and refinement.
posted by The Whelk at 9:48 PM on May 9, 2012

is equivalent to about 1/25 of a shot

No, 1 ml is about 1/25 of a (small, UK-sized 1/6 gill) shot -- actually 1/29 of a US ounce.

0.075 ml, which is what both this post and the link claim, is 0.0025 of an ounce, which is essentially nothing at all -- 1/400th of a small shot. 1/600th of a normal bar shot of 1.5 oz. They claim it hits 1000 times as hard as drinking it, only for a very brief time. I'm skeptical.

And I don't drink just to get drunk; I drink because I love the taste of delicious booze. I notice that the flavors offered here are marketing bullshit like "demon quantum" and "flash quantum"

This isn't quite homeopathy, but it's close.
posted by Fnarf at 9:55 PM on May 9, 2012

f it only lasts for a few seconds there's going to be a lot of people spraying the whole bottle into their mouths

Whoo, and get a whole 2 ml of booze. For $25.

I've licked more booze than that off the floor.
posted by Fnarf at 9:59 PM on May 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Here's a useful tip: If you only have a tiny amount of cocaine left, snort if off a hooker's ass. It won't get you any higher, but what would you rather look at when you're snorting the last of your coke; a hooker's ass or your own sorry face it a cheap mirror?
posted by twoleftfeet at 10:02 PM on May 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

You rub your last bit of coke on the lips and then go about your business, duh.
posted by The Whelk at 10:06 PM on May 9, 2012

Abusing the word "quantum" for bogus scientific cachet... isn't that a little, oh, 2004?

Actually, this is one of the few cases where "quantum" is used in a vaguely correct way. A tiny amount of alcohol moves you briefly into the drunk state. Normally "quantum jump" is improperly used to describe a large jump.
posted by b1tr0t at 10:09 PM on May 9, 2012

Intoxication is a journey, not a destination.
posted by rocket88 at 10:11 PM on May 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I tried sniffing glue but it made my nostrils stick together. Maybe I was doing it wrong.
posted by twoleftfeet at 10:14 PM on May 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

In the future you will get drunk by taking a convenient pill.

A PILL DAMMIT!!!
posted by mazola at 10:21 PM on May 9, 2012

"Actually, this is one of the few cases where 'quantum' is used in a vaguely correct way. A tiny amount of alcohol moves you briefly into the drunk state. Normally 'quantum jump' is improperly used to describe a large jump."

I don't really want to fool around with prescriptivist dictionary definition nonsense, but for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that quantum is all about the unit and discontinuity and not "really small". A "quantum jump" can quite rightly be used to describe a large jump because it's the jump that makes it "quantum", not its size.

But, as I said, unless we're actually communicating within the domain of technical nomenclature, then these words mean however it is that real people in the real world commonly use them.

As for the nonsense in this post, it's nonsense. This is 21st century snake oil salesmanship.

"I found this link from alcohol enema to google to Darwin awards. It's a wonder we haven't blown ourselves up yet with hydrogen bombs as stupid as people can be."

Well...I don't think it's inherently stupid to deliver alcohol as an intoxicant via enema. There are good reasons one might want to do this. You just got to understand and take into consideration things that the guy you mentioned didn't.

That said, I have to admit that the one time I tried this, I was really stupid. Maybe even Darwin Awards stupid. It wasn't like the guy in your link — it was because I didn't stop to consider the implications of the fact that I'd just taken the vodka from my freezer.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:23 PM on May 9, 2012

One of my favorite things is to take a whole lot of amphetamines and a bunch of barbiturates together. If I get the dosage exactly right, they balance out and everything stays exactly the same.

But it's an intense sameness.
posted by twoleftfeet at 10:28 PM on May 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

So everything is even more the same than usual, then?

Isn't this just a smaller, more portable version of that bar where you got drunk by breathing because the alcohol was atomised in the whole space? Like this one.
posted by dg at 10:36 PM on May 9, 2012

A "quantum jump" can quite rightly be used to describe a large jump because it's the jump that makes it "quantum", not its size.

Nope - a quantum unit is the smallest possible unit. The jumpiness is a consequence of the smallest possible unit. Since no smaller unit is possible, the thing in question must* pop discontinuously from one position to the next.

*more precisely, it is always observed to

As for the nonsense in this post, it's nonsense. This is 21st century snake oil salesmanship.

I won't argue with that. But as someone who has accidentally inhaled half a shot of tequila, the idea of other people paying for the privilege of (possibly) inhaling alcohol vapor is appealing.
posted by b1tr0t at 11:00 PM on May 9, 2012

Ordinarily when you drink alcohol, a very tiny amount is absorbed directly into the capillaries of the oral mucosae and reaches the brain directly

I'm pretty sure that it doesn't work that way.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:00 PM on May 9, 2012

I went to a party where everybody was inhaling nitrous oxide. They had a tank, which they used to fill balloons. You take the balloon, hold it to your mouth, and allow the pressure to push the laughing gas into your lungs.

Except they had the wrong kind of tank and everybody was inhaling helium instead.

Only our voices got high.

Since then I've avoided any party that has balloons.
posted by twoleftfeet at 11:06 PM on May 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Homeopathic alcohol. It's a license to print money.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:57 PM on May 9, 2012

You guys can be joyless cynics sometimes. Yes, from a consumer product stand point, this is pretty worthless. However, I think the premise is cute, fun, and artful. They asked a question; what is the smallest irreducible unit of drunkenness? We have legal definitions for drunkenness, and we have these standard units (shot, glass, pint). We know the maximum amount of drunk you can be (before death), but the question of the least amount of drunk you can be, and still feel it, is something we usually pre-empt with a night's sleep. They built a device to deliberately induce this state, so that we can question it. It speaks to the nature of intoxication, and of placebos, and the nature of experience itself.

As with most things in life, the marketing makes it evil. It probably isn't something that should be mass-produced and shipped around the world so you can spend $25 on it. I don't think anyone would pay to see a single photon, even though it is fun to wonder if you could tell what color that photon was. That said, If someone offered me the chance, I would take them up on it, and thank them for it. If I went to a high end cocktail bar and they offered me a complimentary quantum of booze before my first round, I would get a kick out of it, whether or not I 'felt' it. It would give me something to talk about, and think about; something that I wasn't thinking about a moment before, and that may be the quantum of art.
posted by iloveit at 11:59 PM on May 9, 2012 [5 favorites]

The difference between homeopathic medicine and homeopathic alcohol is this: an underdose of medicine is bad for you; an underdose of alcohol is good for you.

Silly, possibly useless, novelty? Yes!

Harmful? unlikely.
posted by b1tr0t at 12:09 AM on May 10, 2012

I think one of the reasons that crack isn't more popular is that it hasn't been marketed the right way. Every time I do crack it's in a back alley, next to the dumpster. But if you had a really nice place, with soft lighting and music, and you could sit on some soft cushions, and when they brought the crack to you they had a plate of several kinds of crack, and the rocks had names like "Sunset over Malibu Crack" and "Evergreen Mist Crack", and you could choose which kind you wanted, and when they brought you the pipe they put one of those little umbrellas on it to make it a more festive... well, I think it could really catch on.
posted by twoleftfeet at 12:24 AM on May 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

The real trouble with all the usual means of intoxication is that they require delivery methods with harmful byproducts. If you smoke pot, you get a certain amount of tar from the smoke. Alcohol stresses the liver. Heroin makes you stick possibly unsanitized needles in your body.

In the future, all intoxicants will enter the body through disinfected suppositories, inserted into the rectum at prescribed intervals. Parties with your friends will gain a novel intimacy. People will be much more reluctant to share a toke. Taverns will radically redesign their bar stools. Junkies will stop wearing pants.
posted by twoleftfeet at 12:50 AM on May 10, 2012

You guys can be joyless cynics sometimes. Yes, from a consumer product stand point, this is pretty worthless. However, I think the premise is cute, fun, and artful. They asked a question; what is the smallest irreducible unit of drunkenness?

Eh, I appreciate the philosophical question posed and answered by the project/product but the "designerness" and "gastronomeness" of this and the previous two products is far too clever and inflated for it's own good.

You could answer the question of "what is a quantum of drunkeness?" yourself by opening a bottle of whatever and just smelling it, or waving it around your head, or taking a shot, swishing it around and spitting it out.

And the answer would be "A quantum of drunkeness isn't very much at all."

My "go eat a nasturtium" quip was actually earnest and sincere and offered as a counterpoint to the very same question.

Nasturtiums are spicy, flavorful, fragrant and an entirely unusual experience for most people to the point of being briefly intoxicating. While people eat other flowers all the time - and it's not uncommon to find nasturtiums used in gourmet cooking - it's rare that someone actually goes and picks an actual blossom off a living plant and eats it standing right there.

It's an entirely natural object that requires no packaging or marketing or overwrought self-important design or branding. I chose the nasturtium specifically because of these things.

But products like this alcohol mister are actually harmful to our environment. Sure, I do consider many other already existing products like this to also be harmful. Candy, gum or mints with excessively clever/gimmicky plastic packaging or delivery engineering, for example. Another example would be the oxygen bar or canned air fad that thankfully mostly quickly died out.

And part of my cynicism and annoyance with this is from a designer's perspective - looking at the use of the product, the packaging, the engineering and it reeks of excess and all too clever faddishness.

This is a product that isn't designed to serve well, be useful or communicate something clearly. These things that are lacking are the hallmarks of good industrial design. Simply being attractive or stylish is really supposed to be down towards the bottom of the list of good industrial design.

But this product is arguably fails in the beauty and style department, too. It appears to be a rather average looking chrome-plated plastic or metal breath spray tube with a plastic gumdrop jammed into it with Starck's branded name embossed on it.

This product appears to be designed to do one thing - to promote Starck as a branded product. It's more about the photo opportunity and viral buzz for Starck and Edwards than the product itself.

They've positioned and packaged this as a purchasable shibboleth of "good taste" because it has their names on it, when it's really far from what is usually considered "good taste".

So, yeah, whatever. I don't think it's actually cynical to question this sort of crass branding of a disposable product that delivers so little that it is (as noted above) nearly homeopathy. This product is practically the definition of conspicuous consumption.

Standing by idly and accepting bullshit like this as the status quo is why we have a Pacific Ocean full of plastic garbage.

To hold this product up as a hallmark of good design or good food is bullshit. You can find better examples of good design or food in a McDonald's.
posted by loquacious at 1:07 AM on May 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

In the future, all intoxicants will enter the body through disinfected suppositories, inserted into the rectum at prescribed intervals. Parties with your friends will gain a novel intimacy. People will be much more reluctant to share a toke. Taverns will radically redesign their bar stools. Junkies will stop wearing pants.

What do you mean "the future"?
posted by loquacious at 1:08 AM on May 10, 2012

TIL there is such a thing as a "butt rocket".

Damn it! Just when I was sure that I had tried everything... Now I've got to cancel my other plans for this weekend.
posted by twoleftfeet at 1:19 AM on May 10, 2012

The WA|HH is a modern and intelligent alternative aligned with our own evolution, as one of the clear signs of part of the intelligent human production is dematerialization”. – Philippe Starck

You keep using that word, "dematerialization." I do not think it means what you think it means.
posted by public at 1:37 AM on May 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

I didn't stop to consider the implications of the fact that I'd just taken the vodka from my freezer.

It's all good until the vodka hits the anus.
posted by eriko at 2:35 AM on May 10, 2012

"a touch of euphoria" that "only lasts a second" is the bare minimum you should expect, laydeez.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:49 AM on May 10, 2012

Artists should be forbidden to use science words to describe their projects. From their website talking about their book artscience:

scientists are famous for believing in the proven and peer-accepted, the very ground that pioneering artists often subvert; they recognize correct and incorrect where artists see only true and false. and yet in some individuals, crossover learning provides a remarkable kind of catalyst to innovation that sparks the passion, curiosity, and freedom to pursue–and to realize–challenging ideas in culture, industry, society, and research. this book, written by our founder and inventor, is an attempt to show how innovation in the "post-Google generation" is often catalyzed by those who cross a conventional line so firmly drawn between the arts and the sciences.

When you are talking about subverting peer review and conflating correct/incorrect versus true/false you are already on shaky ground. An "artist" subverting peer review to get to the "truth" in reality is then just subject to peer review the exact thing that they just tried to subvert. The only way around that would be to not allow anyone else to see what you've done.

Wait a second I know I am the greatest artist that has ever lived and my work is amazing, but in order to subvert the peer-accepted process no one is ever able to see my work and I destroy it after it is complete. Now please send me a grant for one million dollars so I can continue with my work.

The word quantum should also be expunged from popular nomenclature. Most people don't understand it and it has become bastardized to mean anything that the speaker wants it to mean. There are already enough words like this (ie Shit) so an additional one is superfluous.

I also doubt that it would be possible to actually get a quanta of ethanol or to even be able to measure a quanta of intoxication due to the wide differences in metabolism and tolerance that exists between people. If you could get drunk by inhaling ethanol fumes then I would have been rather drunk from doing my recrystallization yesterday when I got a nice whiff of boiling ethanol (only because I like the smell) and yet I didn't.
posted by koolkat at 3:26 AM on May 10, 2012

Way back in the day, when I was much younger, even stupider, and many orders of magnitude drunker, I used to occasionally snort a few drops of tequila from the dimple in the bottom of an inverted brandy snifter or the like. It was a thing I learned from a... party favor distributor I knew when I lived in Cancun for a while. Yeah, I know. I am not entirely proud of my younger self.

Generally when it got to the point in the evening when I started to think that that would be a fun thing to do, I was too inebriated already to tell what kind of effect it might have had, if any.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:47 AM on May 10, 2012

I knew someone who was getting so high on life that he had to quit. Now he's dead.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:58 AM on May 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Spice up your life? Give an instant sting for a moment of dazzling pleasure? WA|HH Demon Quantum wakes the senses up and kindles the spirit. With its spicy, wooded and slightly fruity flavors, WA|HH Demon Quantum guarantees a surprising feeling of euphoria. Ideal to vaporize on salty or sweet foods alike, WA|HH Demon Quantum offers a truly sensory exploration.

A quantum of bollocks.
posted by chavenet at 5:29 AM on May 10, 2012

In the future, all intoxicants will enter the body through disinfected suppositories, inserted into the rectum at prescribed intervals.

Have you never been to a doctor in France, twoleftfeet?
They prescribe everything they possibly can as a suppository. (I'm not a fan).
posted by Jody Tresidder at 7:53 AM on May 10, 2012

The Whelk: "Look people, you're weaponizing the wrong thing, get me some cropdusters and some airborne MDMA and maybe we can start replacing war with dancing."

Kickstart that shit, and I'll donate!
posted by symbioid at 8:06 AM on May 10, 2012

You can also do this with proofing pizza dough by banging on the sides of the container and getting a bubble to pop out of the dough and then inhaling deeply.

These are the things I learned working at a pizza joint in high school. Also, you get drunk fast drinking unfinished pitchers of beer with a straw.
posted by humboldt32 at 9:23 AM on May 10, 2012

Wouldn't quantum alcohol be a single molecule? Because that's the smallest it can be and still be alcohol?
posted by RobotHero at 10:26 AM on May 10, 2012

In other news, a sad Lucille Ball has brought a trademark lawsuit against a company that claims to have invented....
posted by not_on_display at 11:39 AM on May 10, 2012

The Whelk: "Look people, you're weaponizing the wrong thing, get me some cropdusters and some airborne MDMA and maybe we can start replacing war with dancing."

I'm not entirely unserious when I say that this is probably how we will finally bring an end to war. Some nasty conflict will be erupting and, as a last ditch, rather than resorting to meeting violence with more extreme violence, one side will say fuck it, let's dose them with love and sensuousness. And it will work. There will be dancing and reconciliation. Some people will get addicted and eventually O.D. It will be a small price to pay.
posted by philip-random at 12:46 PM on May 10, 2012

You can huff a lot of gasoline for $25.

$25 will let you buy enough cans of whipped cream to get about 5 minutes worth of high.

$25 will also buy a nice bottle of Maker's Mark, which is actually enjoyable, lasts much longer than the nitrous oxide and causes less brain damage than the gasoline.
posted by double block and bleed at 12:51 PM on May 10, 2012

In both of the documents, the possibility was canvassed that a strong aphrodisiac could be dropped on enemy troops, ideally one which would also cause "homosexual behavior". The documents described the aphrodisiac weapon as "distasteful but completely non-lethal". The "New Discoveries Needed" section of one of the documents implicitly acknowledges that no such chemicals are actually known. The reports also include many other off-beat ideas, such as spraying enemy troops with bee pheromones and then hiding numerous beehives in the combat area, and a chemical weapon that would give the enemy bad breath.
posted by The Whelk at 2:12 PM on May 10, 2012

Spray all three and call it the Boyscout Jamboree.
posted by notyou at 2:40 PM on May 10, 2012 [1 favorite]