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Drinkers buying breathalyzers

By Wang Jingqiong and wang hongyi (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-27 07:48

As the country wages a nationwide crackdown on drunken driving, motorists with a propensity to drink are hunting down gadgets and pills in an effort to evade police.

Devices that measure a driver's blood-alcohol content, such as breathalyzers, have been hot items recently, with sellers on taobao.com, the country's largest shopping website, each unloading dozens of testers on a daily basis.

So-called anti-tox drugs, that reportedly counteract the effects of alcohol, are selling well in online shops. Among them, an overseas supplement, labeled RU-21, was the most desirable.

The pills are sold on the website for 35 yuan ($5) for six pills. On the package and instruction sheet for the pill, there are no credentials from China's FDA department.

Related readings:  Chinese police catch 15,000 drunk-drivers in a week  Drunk driving inspector caught driving drunk  Penalty too lenient for drunk drivers: survey  Police catch 6,094 drunk drivers in 2 days

Health experts expressed concern over these drugs and believe many will see them as a panacea for excessive drinking.

"I think these drugs give people a false or at least misleading sense of security. People using such pills may think they can drink more and have less risk," said Xiao Zhou, a Tianjin-based doctor.

"Actually, the body has a certain limit (for breaking down alcohol)," he added. Traffic accidents have been declining since the nationwide crackdown on drunken driving began, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

Traffic police have stopped more than 17,000 drunken drivers since Aug 15, of whom more than 2,400 had a blood-alcohol content of 80 mg per 100 ml or above. Most of them were reported in Zhejiang, Shandong, Shanghai, Jiangsu and the national capital Beijing. Slightly more than 52 percent of the accidents happened on city roads, according to the ministry.