By now you may have heard the news about the latest crazy activity trending among teens. Only this time, the newest “terrifying tween trend” doesn’t involve hand sanitizer or cleaning products from under your sink. According to a YouTube video of an Arizona evening news story that went viral early in April, kids are now allegedly using our favorite household pests to get a buzz.
The video reports that bed bugs contain a chemical called PH-417 which they claim has hallucinogenic properties. Since this chemical cannot be easily extracted by ravenous teens, the video states, the entire bed bug is instead “dried, crushed, and then smoked – and even sometimes injected” in order to get kids high.
In the words of one alleged bed bug user from the video, “It made me feel, you know, like I was walking through wet concrete.”
Like any other form of substance abuse, “experts” in the video warn that this newfound method of recreational hallucination is “extremely dangerous” and “neurotoxic.” Aside from PH-417, the video warns that bed bugs also contain other harmful chemicals that may cause flu-like symptoms in frequent users.
So, are dangerous bed bug smoking trends now yet another reason to keep these critters out of your home, or are these wacky reports as crazy as they sound?
Turns out you can’t believe everything you hear on the internet, including this bed bug hoax!
Snopes.com investigated this “shocking new trend” only to discover it was nothing more than a clever April Fool’s Day joke, a parody of a real news story that aired recently on an Arizona local news station.
Bed bugs are already a nuisance, and if you are currently at your wit’s end battling these little critters in your home, you might not have found it hard to believe they could in fact be capable of the evils that this YouTube video alleged to report. But fear not! Your kids will not be getting high from this imaginary bed bug hallucinogen any time soon.