Teenagers 'bagging' mothballs to get high

[Janice]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/07/27/mo ... index.html


BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- The 18-year-old French woman was hospitalized with scaly skin on her legs and hands, appearing unsteady and mentally sluggish, doctors said.

They found the condition puzzling, especially since the woman's twin sister displayed similar, but less severe, symptoms and there was no family history of the problem, the doctors reported in this week's New England Journal of Medicine that

Several days later, doctors discovered the cause: a bag of mothballs stashed in her hospital room.

The teenagers had been using the mothballs to get high, inhaling air from the bag for about 10 minutes a day because classmates had recommended it. The sicker of the young women also had been chewing half a mothball a day for two months.

The doctors described the high as "dangerous" and most likely under-reported in medical literature.

The teenager told the doctors that she continued to use the mothballs during her hospitalization "because she thought her symptoms were not related to her habit," said Lionel Feuillet at the Hospital of Timone in Marseille, France.

Mothballs, used to prevent moth larva from getting into clothing, contain paradichlorobenzene, a substance also found in air fresheners and insect repellents that can cause liver and kidney failure, and severe anemia.

The discovery comes at a time when teenagers are increasingly experimenting with legal drugs such as OxyContin, widely known as "hillbilly heroin," and Vicodin, often bought online or taken from medicine cabinets, even before trying marijuana or alcohol, health officials say.

The sicker of the women took six months to recover fully. Her twin, who had only been "bagging" for a few weeks, recovered after three months.

Feuillet told Reuters that a cleaning lady discovered the mothballs in the drawer of the patient's night table.

When the woman was asked what she was doing with the bag, "she showed us how she used to breathe directly into the mothballs bag," Feuillet said.

[Skywatch_NC]

Speaking of sniffing...whether it be mothballs, paint, aerosols, glue, etc. -- when I was in H.S. and in art class there were some fellow students getting their "highs" on some squeeze tube paints while the teacher was out of the room for a while. A couple days later I confided in...not the art teacher...but another teacher of mine what had been going on. Never saw fellow art student classmates sniff again after that.

[ohiostorm]

Rubber Cement and the duster stuff for computers were the big things when I was in high school. No I wasn't apart of it! I don't know how people could sniff mothballs though. I can't even stand the smell when someone has a jacket on that was with mothballs before. It SMELLS!

[TexasStooge]

OK, now I've seen and heard everything.

Some teenagers will do anything to get themselves high.

[brunota2003]

Can you say "Boneheads"? how stupid could they be? I'm a teen...and I stay away from things like that and the people who do 'em...

[nholley]

Kids eh? Whatever happened to smoking an old fashioned joint?

[TexasStooge]

Kids eh? Whatever happened to smoking an old fashioned joint?

They've done that, they just wanted to do something bigger and deadlier.

[azsnowman]

That's bad but not as bad as the kids around here smokin' RAID bug spray

They spray it onto a piece of aluminum foil, hook a set of jumper cables to a car battery, then hook it to the foil and VIOLA, crystal Raid meth, used for smoking

[stormtruth]

Good grief kids

[CentralFlGal]

Mothballs, which are classified as a pesticide, may look like candy to a child. They are poisonous when eaten and seizures can develop in less than one hour. Mothballs contain 100% of either naphthalene or paradichlorobenzene. Both of these ingredients can produce harmful effects when they enter your system through inhalation. Irritation to nose, throat, and lungs, headache, confusion, excitement or depression, and liver and kidney damage can result from exposure to mothball vapors over a long period of time.

Mothballs containing naphthalene are of special concern because naphthalene can promote a breakdown of red blood cells resulting in hemolytic anemia. Hemolytic anemia in mild form may cause only fatigue. In more severe cases, it can cause acute kidney failure.

Source: http://www.purdue.edu/dp/envirosoft/housewaste/house/mothball.htm

Is the short-term high really worth it?