Portsmouth Middle School warns parents about Smartie-snorting epidemic and the risk of nasal maggots

British Smarties sound like Canadian Smarties

Nope, it wouldn’t. South County (Washington County, actually, where I live) is on the other side of the bay. That’s where the Swamp Yankees live. Portsmouth is more salt-marshy than swampy.

Huh. It turns out there is such a thing as a sugar allergy, of sorts - sucrose intolerance. It sounds sort of like a much more extreme version of humans’ inability to break down the polysaccharides in beans and such. Except the problem only occurs in the intestinal tract, not the nose AFAICT.

You prefer NECCO?

walks away shaking head

I mean, seriously. As someone that has used tampons for their intended function, I can’t even imagine trying to put one back in after it was soaked with, well, anything…

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For all its failings, the best descriptions of this phenomenon are in Updike’s Witches of Eastwick

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Supposed that it’s a real thing. How the hell do those kids get those wacky ideas? Are they imitating behavior seen elsewhere like snorting cocaine?

Then there’s the disturbing habit of preschoolers – preschoolers! – sticking things up their noses. Kids these days!

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Back in my day it was Pixy Stix, but I do have a funny Pop Rocks story.

I was in charge of my church’s youth group for a while. One day, a kid came in with a bag of pop rocks and a coke, and we started joking around about how that will make your head explode. Being teenagers, I assumed they were highly conversant in sarcasm so I said jokingly “Well what’s REALLY cool is when you stick pop rocks up your nose.”

Then one of them tried it.

As she is holding her nose and going “Ow ow ow owww” … her sister also tries it.

At least they were siblings so I only had to explain that to one set of parents.

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Smarties: Now For Dummies

@JonasEggeater see! This is the kind of thing that results from obamacare!

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I remember kids in school (15-20 years ago) snorting Pixie Stix. I didn’t understand why then nor do I now.

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I actually caught one of my students snorting smarties. I have to admit that I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.

The fact that some kids (who don’t know about Snopes and/or are the kind of kid who literally will do anything on a dare) may have tried it doesn’t mean that it’s anything like a trend. Probably there are a few cases of someone trying to smoke banana peels (first published in the 60s in the Berkeley Barb–as a joke–and immortalized in the Anarchist’s Cookbook), or huffing jenkem, or whatever. Just as one swallow doth not a summer make, so doth that one kid not indicate cause for alarm.

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Where did all the tacky colours go?

IT’S NOT THE SAME. T^T

My alcoholic mother told me that the advantage to vodka is that no one can smell it. On the breath at least.

Kids did it in my high school a couple of years after I graduated. I didn’t say it was an epidemic or anything; I said there were “definite cases.” But I think that the tampon thing is probably more widespread than you think, though it’s probably also less widespread than I think - there were just a lot of kids at my highschool who were stupid enough to try it.

The THC content in a lot of modern marijuana is, I believe, somewhere around 3-10x as much as in the '60s. It depends on what you’re comparing in both time periods, but if you’re getting anything much higher than about 10x you’re probably not actually comparing marijuana to marijuana, but marijuana to something like plain old hemp.

The issue of mental illness is partly accurate, but vastly overstated. There are adverse reactions (i.e., psychosis) in a minority (but not insignificant fraction) of the population, particularly to extremely high consumption of THC. These effects are almost universally temporary, though – it just means these people really shouldn’t be getting stoned (I think it can cause long-term side-effects in such people if they keep doing it, for instance).

Regarding your second paragraph, I don’t believe such things can be measured with enough accuracy to make definitive statements like that. Sound like propaganda to me.

Also, 30 years ago you got a bag of sticks and seeds with some leaf, now you get a bag full of groomed buds. Of course it is higher in what matters. that is the point. Call it the maturation of the market rather than some kind of evil plan. We used to smoke an ounce in a one night binge. That would just be a waste now, since you won’t get any higher after a couple of bowls. Could it be an illusion created by the hype surrounding this issue? Why, yes it could.

I also remember my friends acting drunk and silly on pot in the old days. That was just camaraderie intoxication In my opinion. A far more dangerous drug than marijuana.

I guess that’s the assumption.

I don’t believe for a second that snorting candy is a “thing”, though. Maybe a few kids have tried it once because they were bored, but not repeatedly. It’s true that kids can get interested in experimenting with drugs at a certain age and maybe sniff some glue or steal a few beers.

Why would anyone want to imitate only the act of taking drugs (ie. snorting) and not the effects? Kids aren’t that stupid - if they’re old enough to know about snorting white powder, they know it’s supposed to make you feel good. If some kids have snorted candy, it’s probably because they were challenged to do it and not because they are mindlessly imitating the acts of the lifeless junkies they’re bound to become.

[quote=“JonasEggeater, post:78, topic:19796, full:true”]
Kids did it in my high school a couple of years after I graduated. I didn’t say it was an epidemic or anything; I said there were “definite cases.” But I think that the tampon thing is probably more widespread than you think, though it’s probably also less widespread than I think - there were just a lot of kids at my highschool who were stupid enough to try it.[/quote]

Those kids probably did it after they had heard about the “news story” and thought it was a popular thing and a good way to get drunk. I would bet that they never tried it again - alcohol burns like a motherfucker down there. And if you really want to get drunk at school, why not just take a flask with you and drink in the bathroom? That would be much easier.

Vodka tampon is one of those things that makes no sense, when you start to think about it, but sounds scary enough (or “hardcore” enough, if you’re a certain kind of teenager) that the idea spreads like wildfire. That’s why urban legends like that should never even be allowed to rise their heads - eventually some people will try it, and then the pearlclutchers feel their fears are justified and push for legislation meant to “protect the kids from the evils of drugs”.