WARNING TO ALL PARENTS THIS IS WHAT TEENS ARE DOING TO GET A CHEEP HIGH!!!!!
Teens soaking Gummi bears with vodka
Published: Nov. 20, 2011 at 11:28 PM
MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Teens soaking Gummi bears with vodka can be added to other creative ways of getting drunk such as vodka-soaked tampon, Minnesota health officials say.
The Minnesota Health Department, the Hennepin County Regional Poison Center and the Dakota County attorney's office sent warnings to schools about the booze-soaked Gummi bears in mid-October, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
James Backstrom, Dakota County attorney, said the spiked Gummi bears are gaining traction via the Internet, with instructions and YouTube clips readily available.
"The Internet gives things life," Backstrom told the Star Tribune. "Kids are drinking way more than their parents. It's the difference between having dialup and broadband."
Minnesota is among the Top 5 states for binge drinking, along with Wisconsin, Iowa and North and South Dakota.
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Did you know that Gummi bears are part of a dangerous trend that has some saying: Beware of the Bear?
Health departments across the country are warning teens that vodka-soaked Gummi bears are dangerous.
Several states are now sending out information to parents, schools, and police to keep an eye out for the booze-soaked bears.
It is the latest method teens are using to get drunk.
Health advisors say vodka is odorless, and in most cases, allows the bears to keep their shape.
The enhanced bears have been spotted at sports games, dances, even in classrooms.
THEN THEY ARE DOING THIS FOR ANOTHER CHEAP HIGH
Vodka Tampons? Reported Alcohol Abuse Among Teens Also Includes 'Butt Chugging'
It would appear that nobody wants to use their mouth anymore to get drunk.
Much to their parents' dismay, teens have long been known to secretly consume alcohol, and the latest method reportedly has them doing so with tampons and bongs.
"[It's a] quicker high, they think it's going to last longer, it's more intense," Dr. Dan Quan from Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix told KPHO News.
Vodka tampons are exactly what they sound like. Teens supposedly soak a tampon in alcohol and consume it by either taking as shots or inserting the tampons in their rectums or vaginas, KPHO reported. This way, alcohol is absorbed directly into the bloodstream through the membrane walls. In fact, Dr. Lisa Masterson, co-host of "The Doctors," says this method will "literally destroy the vagina."
Teen's death blamed on 'choking game'
Friday, December 09, 2011
That a lot of children played the choking game and that's what it looked like it was," said Elisabeth Piefer.
The choking game has been around for years, but it's spreading because of online videos.
"This is like a hMILLBRAE, Calif. (KGO) -- It goes by many names -- space monkey, Cali high, the choking game -- and it's a risky fad that appears to have claimed another young victim, a freshman from Mills High School in Millbrae.
Child advocates say we're not putting any ideas into kids' heads by doing this story -- most already know about the choking game and it's important for parents to be warned. The parents of the boy who died this past Saturday asked the I-Team to tell this story.
Phil and Elisabeth Piefer from Millbrae buried their son Friday. Dylan was just 14 years old.
"Very happy, full of life the day he died," said Dylan's mother, Elisabeth Piefer. "He was so happy that day, he cleaned his room up, I gave him $10 and he said, 'Thanks mom, I love you,' and that was the last I saw of him."
This past Saturday, Dylan told his parents he was heading to the park to meet friends. He climbed through a hole in the fence, walked the long path to the airport property that lines Highway 101 across from SFO. Just across the water is a popular meeting place; they call it "the fort."
Dylan was the first one there. His friends arrived to find him with a rope around his neck, attached to a tree about four feet from the ground.
"He was on his knees when they found him. There was no way that he was, you know, he could have got up," said Dylan's uncle, Kenny Piefer. "If his friends were there, they could have took the rope off him at least, if there was other people there with him."
"My friend Elisabeth came flying to my house screaming that her son was found dead over here," said family friend Christina Baugh.
San Mateo County sheriff's investigators are working the case as a suicide, but the coroner told the family it appeared to be something else.
"It's maybe considered a safe way to experiment with a different state of mind because drugs aren't used," she said.
It's difficult to track just how many kids die from the choking game; they're often simply ruled a suicide.
While Dylan's investigation moves forward, his classmates and teachers at Mills High are being offered grief counseling. They've been writing their thoughts on a banner for him
How-to instructional video, how to do it, but be careful, don't kill yourself 'cause then it would suck if it's my fault," said the narrator in of these online videos.
There are many variations -- deep breaths and pressing on the chest, a headlock, using a rope, belt, bed sheet or curtain. The point is all the same -- cutting oxygen to the brain.
"I want to warn you, I think you lose like several billion brain cells each time you do it," said the video's narrator.
The rush comes as brain cells die. The twitching that's so common with someone who's passed out is actually a seizure. There's also the danger of broken bones, if no one is there to catch and a kid lands hard.
The danger of death grows exponentially when someone does this when they're alone.
"It's definitely not safe because you don't have a lot of control over what you're doing," says adolescent therapist Jennifer Tan.
Tan works with the Bay Area Center for Adolescents, and she has treated kids who've experimented with the choking game.
Even on this, the most painful of days, Dylan's parents want you to hear their story, hoping something good can come from such tragedy.
"And I have the biggest hole in my heart and I hope no other parent ever, ever has to go through this," said Dylan's mother. "It's heartbreaking over something just so silly."
Investigators are checking reports of an adult male seen heading into the trees with Dylan just before he died.
Those instructional videos are all over the Internet, in fact, parents' groups use them to explain the warning signs, such as marks on the neck, bloodshot eyes, or persistent headaches.
THEN WE JUST GOT THE WORD IN AND ITS ANOTHER BIG MAJOR ISSUE
Hand sanitizer is supposed to kill germs, but some southern California teens are using it kill brain cells as well.
In the last few months, six teenagers have shown up in two San Fernando Valley emergency rooms with alcohol poisoning after drinking hand sanitizer, according to the Los Angeles Times.
This insane use of hand sanitizer has public health officials worrying that it's just the start of dangerous trend.
Hand sanitizers use a formula up to 62 percent ethyl alcohol to kill germs, but some students desperate for kicks are using salt to separate the alcohol from the sanitizer, and making a potent 120-proof liquid equal in strength to a shot of hard liquor.
"All it takes is just a few swallows and you have a drunk teenager," Cyrus Rangan, director of the toxicology bureau for the county public health department and a medical toxicology consultant for Children's Hospital Los Angeles, told the L.A. Times. "There is no question that it is dangerous."
Health effects from the drink reportedly include diarrhea, memory loss and even blindness and irreversible organ damage.
There have been only a few cases reported in Los Angeles, but Rangan fears the hand sanitizer highballs will become a larger problem since the product is cheap, easily available and the instructions for distilling it are easily available on the Internet, KTLA reported.
"It is kind of scary that they go to that extent to get a shot of essentially hard liquor," Rangan said.
This is just the latest over-the-counter product that teens have used in an attempt to get a buzz, joining a dubious list that includes cough syrup, vanilla extract and mouthwash.
In fact, at least two homeless people in Albuquerque, N.M., died after drinking a mix of distilled hand sanitizer and mouthwash, according to KASA-TV.
Police officials are worried that local teens will pick up on the hand sanitizer habit, so they have been asking local stores to move the hand sanitizer and mouthwash in hopes of nipping the problem in the bud.
