News Candy-Flavored Meth
posted by on March 27 at 9:24 AM
Ripping a page from the tobacco and alcohol industries’ playbooks, the folks that bring you crystal meth have started offering candy-flavored meth—and Washington state is apparently one of the test markets. From USA Today:
Reports of candy-flavored methamphetamine are emerging around the nation, stirring concern among police and abuse prevention experts that drug dealers are marketing the drug to younger people. The flavored crystals are available in California, Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Texas, New Mexico, Missouri and Minnesota, according to intelligence gathered by Drug Enforcement Administration agents from informants, users, local police and drug counselors, DEA spokesman Steve Robertson says.
Meth now comes in strawberry, chocolate, and cola flavors—in addition to blue meth, or “Smurf dope,” that one meth maker had selling in Missouri. While most of the USA Today story stokes anti-drug hysteria—they’re selling candy-flavored meth to our kids!—USA Today does eventually get around to pointing out that meth use in the United States has been falling for years, and that the emergence of flavored meth is a sign of desperation among dealers.
“The traffickers know the word is out about what a horrible drug this is,” Burns says. “They are having a tough time selling this product, especially to young people. What do people in marketing do when they have a tough time selling a product? They have to come up with some sort of gimmick.”
So are you saying alcohol use has been declining?
But hooray for the entrepreneurial spirit!
If only this had been available during my meth using days back in high school. To this day, the thought of the taste of meth dripping down the back of my throat makes me shudder.
In LA recently, "cucumber flavored cocaine" was the talk of the town.
“They are having a tough time selling this product, especially to young people. What do people in marketing do when they have a tough time selling a product? They have to come up with some sort of gimmick.”
One technique popular in marketing departments is working with a large newspaper to work one of your press releases into a feature article. Is that's what's going on here? Why is USA Today marketing meth?
Let me know when they invent meth that tastes like pussy.
Kids have been shooting up with meth mixed up with Gatorade forever. The "vapours" , the part you cough out after you slam it, are flavoured like Lemon Ice, etc...
Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Co were all big on Strawberry Quik flavored Cocaine a while back. Once again they are trend setters.
Sweet -- another unsubstantiated drug rumor perpetuated by the federal government and USA Today! It seems like just yesterday maternity wards were littered with crack babies and terrorism was funded by pot smokers...
Meth's a nasty drug, no question there, but the people sounding the "candy-flavored meth" alarm are a DEA spokesperson and Scott Burns, "deputy drug czar for state, local and tribal affairs for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy." When it comes to the realities of drug use, these guys are less credible than tweakers.
How do they reach their conclusion? Here we go: "A patrol officer who stopped a car on Feb. 13 in a rural area of Greene County, Mo., seized a bag of 'strawberry meth' from a female passenger, says Capt. Randy Gibson of the Greene County Sheriff's Department. The seized drug had a slight strawberry smell to it, he said."
So we're supposed to believe there's a concerted nationwide efforts to lure kids into snorting meth because a rural cop confiscated a bag of speed from a female passenger (and women never wear fruity scents that rub off on their stuff) and he thought it smelled slightly of berries... Oh, jeez.
If this bag of meth really was strawberry scented, it hardly constitutes an epidemic, as the article claims. Until we read some credible evidence, from people who know what they're talking about, this looks like more hype.
Amen to Fnarf at #4, I heard this report on the news last night and it sounded like an advertisement for all the kids out there that like the drug, but not the taste. What better way to sound the alarm about a nasty drug than to let everyone know that if they mix it with candy it'll be easier to do... The news report showed someone pouring a bunch of different flavored powders- candy, drink mix, etc. onto a silver platter as they talked about it. By the end of the report I was just about ready to go buy some tweak and a pack of candy to see what all the hype was about. Go America!
Yes, but Dan! Your tech-savvy at-risk youth are killing me, and not with meth--where's today's podcast?
Candy flavored. Well, I suppose that's OK, but I'm not into sweets, what I'd really like is nacho flavored meth, or some cool ranch meth. Now that would be kickin!
I think I have to echo Dominic's sentiments here. Ask yourself this:
1. Why would drug dealers alter their drugs to sell to kids who - presumably - can't afford them?
2. If it's enough meth to kill a child, why give it to them in the first place? It seems to be bad business to kill the people you want to make money from.
The real reason that strawberry meth would (note that's "would" not "does") exist is to appeal to the - for want of a better word - pussier crowd; the same crowd that buys grain alcohol mixed with Kool-Aid (Boone's Farm).
Bring back the Disney stamps with LSD on them.
Reminds me of the Bart Simpson LSD tab "scare" 15 years ago.
According to a local PBS story that centered around the one-time meth capital of Modesto, CA, our idiot drug czar spent more recourses fighting the evils of marijuana smoking and was pretty much the last to get on board in combating meth.
Once meth gets as bad back east as it is here in the west, we'll see a lot more paranoid jounalism like this.
Shit, have folks who believe this ever done meth? I can't imagine there's any possible way to cover that horrible taste.
I'm with Dominic - this sounds like absolute propaganda bullshit to me.
What better way to program the paranoid parents parade then to convince them that they'll lure little Johnny with candy-flavored meth. From the "pot is six(or whatever number you want) times stronger than in the sixties" crowd.
Man, you will never see Pusha and Malice jump the shark with some of that candy flavored biker coke. That's nonsense. Ya boys stay true with them scarface piles on Dove pure. Ask a hipster.
Where on Earth did the clueless come up with the belief that a dealer's prefered customer are kids? I have yet to meet a drug dealer who is willing to sell to kids...and believe me I have met allot over the years. Aside from the fact that kids don't have any money, they are a big security risk. It doesn't take much to scare a kid into telling people where they got the dope from. Where is the logic in trying to get people to believe that dealers are targeting kids? No dealer, no matter how burnt he is, is going to sell dope to someone who is a good risk for spilling the beans.
Spreading paranoid crap like this takes all crediability away from what they are saying...just like Reefer Madness in the 60's. What is this line of bull “The traffickers know the word is out about what a horrible drug this is,” Burns says. “They are having a tough time selling this product, especially to young people. What do people in marketing do when they have a tough time selling a product? They have to come up with some sort of gimmick.” Meth is addictive enough for dealers to not have to worry about "new clientel". Unless things have drastically changed in the four years i have been clean, the people I went to couldn't keep up with the demand, no matter how much they had on hand. All that article did was give tweekers another neat idea...I wonder how many of them slapped their forehead and said "Why didn't I think of that?!"
Ummmmmm ..... Ok ... but it seems like everywere I turn it's all about underage drinking and kids getting high off of prescriptions ...
at least on tv ... I have yet to see anything about this !!!... and I agree with ALOT of people posting saying it's BS .. it is ..
wach the TV show the drug years its been on the history chanel and vh1 ... it's a middle of the road view of drugs in the usa ... You all might find it intresting !
What a crock this is. The government never passes up an opportunity to incite mass hysteria when it comes to drugs.
First, there isn't a strawberry on this planet that packs a powerful enough flavor to cover up that of meth- it's 100% often-imitated, never-duplicated ass flavor. Besides, fewer and fewer people are worrying about the taste because more and more people are either smoking or injecting it.
I have seen people who smoke it through a water pipe and put peppermint in the water to give it creative twist. I have also seen Ketamine baked with a cap full of vanilla extract to enhance the smell when you snort it, but Special K doesn't hold a match to the yuck factor of crystal.
This girl had probably hidden her baggy of ice in a pack of Bubble-Yum causing the scent to rub off on it. I can't tell if it is willful deceit or plain stupidity that led someone to assume that a candy-meth conspiracy was upon us. Next thing you know, they will find heroin stuck up someones ass and tell us that new Anal-Flavored-Smack is being marketed to the sexual deviant crowd.
I also agree with Dominic. Since when has ANYONE had trouble getting rid of meth? I mean, one minute they will have us believe that everyone and their mother is smoking meth and the next they are telling us that there is a meth recession. Which is it?
As for selling to kids... 99% of the people I have seen who were stupid enough to sell to kids were... other kids.
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