Yeah I got a half a bag of mothballs and some cedar chips left over from last night

August 1, 2006 10:42 AM

Jack Shafer takes on the mothball epidemic that's sweeping through the United States. CNN
posted by geoff. (42 comments total)

Journalists are stupid.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 10:48 AM on August 1, 2006

Um, this was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine but the two sisters are French and live in Frenchland. So its hard to say its "sweeping" the US.

I wish smoking dope wasn't so passe with the youth of today. Next you'll hear about kids snorting Lye to get high (and roto-rooter their nasal passages and brains).
posted by fenriq at 10:51 AM on August 1, 2006

"It is very strange that something that makes headlines as an intoxicant is ignored as a pollutant."

gasoline, glue ...
posted by mrgrimm at 10:53 AM on August 1, 2006

Sounds fun, I'll give it a try when I'm done smoking my banana peels.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:54 AM on August 1, 2006

furious, cut it with a little nutmeg, it adds a lovely flavor and you'll adore the convulsions!
posted by fenriq at 10:55 AM on August 1, 2006

Um, this was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine but the two sisters are French and live in Frenchland. So its hard to say its "sweeping" the US.

That's sorta kinda the point of the article.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 10:56 AM on August 1, 2006

Mothballs, Goofballs.

But really, inability to access less harmful but more fun drugs causes people to turn to these dangerous things. Overdemonization of drugs in schools causes kids to think all potential intoxicants are equally bad for you.
posted by delmoi at 10:58 AM on August 1, 2006

Call me when the victims asphyxiate themselves with plastic and are found hanging in the attic. Meanwhile, I'll keep my nose clear for the day my son smells like Grandma's wool church hat.
posted by hal9k at 10:58 AM on August 1, 2006

I wish I could get high off of mothballs, but with all the coke I do, I don't think I can afford to buy them.
posted by shmegegge at 11:04 AM on August 1, 2006

sniffing mothballs?

How do you get their legs apart?
posted by jonmc at 11:07 AM on August 1, 2006 [5 favorites]

The EPA on naphthalene.
posted by cenoxo at 11:14 AM on August 1, 2006

Yeah, can someone point out the balls on this thing?
posted by shoepal at 11:14 AM on August 1, 2006

I'm reminded of a quote by Mencken.
posted by clevershark at 11:15 AM on August 1, 2006

Yeah, can someone point out the balls on this thing?

That's a moth larva, silly. Only the adults have balls.
posted by String at 11:28 AM on August 1, 2006

Bloodletting can get you high.
posted by JJ86 at 11:34 AM on August 1, 2006

Damn kids these days. In my day we took our 500 mics of LSD and we were happy to get it, but apparently, LSD isn't good enough for them these days. Damn stupid kids..
posted by doctor_negative at 11:35 AM on August 1, 2006

I wonder if this is some perverse consequence of the anti-drug policies so common these days... kids want to get high, but drugs are bad! So they can't do drugs! But mothballs, not being drugs, must not be bad. QED. Or something.
posted by GuyZero at 11:50 AM on August 1, 2006

jonmc writes "sniffing mothballs?

"How do you get their legs apart?"

Reminds me of this story about a man who was a little too passionate about rabbits. Apparently (and this is from another story that has since disappeared in the ether) the people at the pet shop he used to frequent got suspicious when he showed up with little scratch marks around his mouth.
posted by clevershark at 11:50 AM on August 1, 2006

Meh. The media figured out a long time ago that if you want to sell papers/sell ad spots/gather eyeballs the thing to do is tell Americans about some new drug craze, because they eat that sh*t up.
posted by clevershark at 11:51 AM on August 1, 2006

French Girls on Mothballs....Rabelais, Celine, Appollinaire, Desnos, Houellebecq...they are just following in the footsteps of the greats, if you ask me.
posted by kozad at 11:54 AM on August 1, 2006

Overdemonization of drugs in schools causes kids to think all potential intoxicants are equally bad good for you.

My take-home message from the "drug education" I got in school (consisting mostly of scare stories that didn't seem plausible even to a sixth grader) was that the educators were clueless and that most illegal drugs, as opposed to, say, cigarettes and alcohol, were harmless, outside of their illegal and uncontrolled nature. I lay my wide experimentation with intoxicants directly at the feet of the anti-drug establishment and I believe I am fairly representative. I reserve judgement on whether this is a good or bad thing.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:55 AM on August 1, 2006

Didn't Jack Shafer just make the problem worse, by spreading the information that mothballs can get you high? Now all sorts of Mefiesdumbasses are going to give it a try.

Quick, ban the media from reporting drug stories!!1
posted by Kickstart70 at 11:56 AM on August 1, 2006

Silver-lining: They may get festering lesions and fry their brains, but at least those girls won't get holes in their sweaters.
posted by Gamblor at 12:01 PM on August 1, 2006

most illegal drugs...were harmless

I've been trying to get my kids to do drugs too. So far, they've said no to heroin, cocaine and meth. I blame it on the lousy school system in my area.

@Mental Wimp
Please post some links to research that shows these drugs are harmless. Do it for the kids.
posted by sluglicker at 12:46 PM on August 1, 2006

Please post some links to research that shows these drugs are harmless. Do it for the kids.
posted by sluglicker at 12:46 PM PST on August 1

Why don't you start off by finding the LD50 for marijuana and then get back to us?
posted by Optimus Chyme at 12:51 PM on August 1, 2006

Didn't Jack Shafer just make the problem worse, by spreading the information that mothballs can get you high? Now all sorts of Mefiesdumbasses are going to give it a try.

The only people who read the papers looking for things to do are terrorists. Jack Shafer just saved your life.
posted by srboisvert at 12:55 PM on August 1, 2006

Why don't you start off by finding the LD50 for marijuana and then get back to us?

For smoking, ingestion, or having bales dropped on you? For the latter, it is about 175 pounds at 20 feet.
posted by eriko at 12:56 PM on August 1, 2006

Do you see marijuana on my list? Freakin' idiots.
posted by sluglicker at 1:08 PM on August 1, 2006

Unless Mental Wimp died in the last couple of hours, I'd say he's proven they weren't fatal.

I note that he says that "harmless" was his take-home-opinion from school drug classes, not his statement of fact or current belief. That being said, heroin, cocaine, and meth all have a place in current medical treatments, though sometimes in synthetic form. The idea that these substances aren't instantly harmful is not new or novel, when tempered with moderation.
posted by nomisxid at 1:24 PM on August 1, 2006

The motherfuckers thought staunching my threads with mothballs extended into a recreational use that resembled some long lost and quite penultimate dessert -- a THC substitute, a double dipping, a kind of Depression-era reuse of materials that would make our grandparents proud. Sure, there were carbon byproducts and the crazy flames from the white wads were enough to make the local class clown Jack Harris upchuck with hilarity. But I suspected it had more to do with the fact that nobody had any bread and the drug peddlers had long moved past Twin Falls, Idaho.

There was no life, no real high. And that's why we started smoking larvae. Oh, those little fuckers started screaming -- or was that the buzz? -- as we jammed their wings into our paraphenalia and the buzz crowd thinned out a bit -- in part, because Jack was a closet member of the SPCA and he felt that his liberal tendencies extended into the insect kingdom. And the moths attracted by the blue flames of our pipes soon found their crude fluffy bodies jammed into the bowl.

Come here, little mothie. We have no use for our mothballs now. But we will show you the attraction of light.
posted by ed at 1:27 PM on August 1, 2006

So who here is going to try this and tell the rest of us what it is like, erowid style?
posted by geoff. at 1:32 PM on August 1, 2006

if you want to sell papers/sell ad spots/gather eyeballs the thing to do is tell Americans about some new drug craze, because they eat that sh*t up.

But does eating it up get them high, or not?


posted by Kirth Gerson at 1:33 PM on August 1, 2006

It's paradichlorobenzene (1,4-dichlorobenzene) not naphthalene. From the looks of things it's similar in action to naphthalene though, it still causes narcosis and presumably the same kinds of hallucinations. It looks like it's the same as sniffing any solvent but in solid form, causes liver problems and slow brain death. Not a nice way to go or a particularly nice high by most reports.
posted by bonehead at 1:39 PM on August 1, 2006

The only safe and sane solution is to ban all woolen fabrics.
posted by Cranberry at 1:45 PM on August 1, 2006

Do you see marijuana on my list? Freakin' idiots.
posted by sluglicker at 1:08 PM PST on August 1

thanks napoleon
posted by Optimus Chyme at 1:58 PM on August 1, 2006

Reminds me of the Dustoff hysteria. The real tragedy is how intensely, rock-stupid these kids are. Now they can grow up, breed, and make adorable low-watt children in moth-eaten sweaters.
posted by elderling at 2:14 PM on August 1, 2006

How strange it is that the answer to having less brain dead kids is to legalize pot.
posted by hexxed at 3:08 PM on August 1, 2006

I note that he says that "harmless" was his take-home-opinion from school drug classes, not his statement of fact or current belief

You're right. I misunderstood his meaning. Apologies to Mental Wimp.
posted by sluglicker at 3:33 PM on August 1, 2006

Maybe we should start inventing new drugs. Like say, rubbing apple skins in your armpits or shoving broccoli up your butt?

Because, you know, ER doctors need a laugh every now and then too.
posted by fenriq at 4:03 PM on August 1, 2006

Dog Urine Lowers Heart-Attack Risk, Say Snickering Researchers
posted by Optimus Chyme at 4:33 PM on August 1, 2006

Maybe we should start inventing new drugs.

A prophet from the 1980s, Huey Lewis, spoke movingly of this.
posted by First Post at 8:18 PM on August 1, 2006

GuyZero writes "I wonder if this is some perverse consequence of the anti-drug policies so common these days... kids want to get high, but drugs are bad! So they can't do drugs! But mothballs, not being drugs, must not be bad. QED. Or something."

More like the war on drugs makes relatively safe stuff like alcohol and cannabis difficult to get so the stupid and/or foolish turn to dangerous stuff like moth balls and gasoline. It's a real problem in northern communities in Canada where the illegal drug trade is hampered by lack of access and the poverty of the residents.

Optimus Chyme writes "Why don't you start off by finding the LD50 for marijuana and then get back to us?"

DA: Harm often occurs before death. A pointy stick to the eye will hurt but probably won't kill you.
posted by Mitheral at 11:41 AM on August 8, 2006