Jack Shafer Rips Up The Pharm Reports
According to news sources from The Wall Street Journal to The New York Times to The Washington Post to ABC News, kids across America have these parties where they pour pills from their parents' medicine chests into a big bowl, grab a handful, and swallow them "like trail mix." Yeah, right. As champion news bullshit debunker Jack Shafer puts it on Slate:
But what I found preposterous in 2006 and still find preposterous today is the notion that having gotten their hands on drugs, today's users would randomize both their drugs and their dosages. Today's Journal reports that kids "mix the drugs up in a big bowl and eat them like candy" and attributes the detail to the Drug Enforcement Administration.The Journal isn't alone in pharm-party reportage. "Teenagers scoop everything they can find out of a medicine cabinet, pile it all on the table and then just start swallowing stuff," a California medical worker tells the Sacramento Bee. Kids swallow the pills "indiscriminately," writes the Birmingham News. Noted drug authority Marie Osmond told Larry King that kids--not her kid in rehab, mind you--dump the drugs "in a bowl and they just take them until they pass out."
Yet pharm parties fail to pass my stink test. As dumb as kids may be, they know how to read the labels from the vials they boost from their parents' medicine cabinets. If the drug labels don't provide sufficient information, the thieving little bastards can always consult the Web for effect and potency data. So upon arriving at a hypothetical pharm party, how many young pill-poppers are going to throw their fistfuls of pilfered OxyContin in the bowl on the chance that a random scoop will yield several over-the-counter antihistamine tablets?
See I kinda hoped they did happen. Think of it as evolution in action, anyone stupid enough to do that really shouldn't get to breed.
Actually maybe that's the idea, someone is trying to get the meme into the wild so then the kids will start doing it... Hmmmm
Simon Proctor at March 27, 2008 2:54 AM
Oh but dontcha know, we used to do that with acid back in the day - we'd mix blotter with orange barrel sunshine with purple microdot, with windowpane, in a bowl, and eat it by the handfuls and then stare at the sun until we went blind and...
Oh wait, none of that shit ever happened. I ate a hit of microdot and went to see the Jon Miles Band and Fleetwood Mac open for Jeffereson Starship at Colt Park in Hartford, and me and my friend couldn't find the car until we came down somewhat, but there was a guy there who hung out with us until we did find the car, he was a real sweetheart to do that, never saw him again. Huh.
It's all a lot of crap. Pharm parties, my ass.
Flynne at March 27, 2008 6:17 AM
The author has watched too many re-runs of Dragnet the movie.
You know, the one where Dan Akroyd dressed in furry chaps and ate drugs out of a bowl during a devil-worshipping orgy.
austin at March 27, 2008 7:37 AM
That sounds like a lot of fun actually...take a shitload of pills and pass out or potentially OD. Not.
First off: OCs sell for $80 a pop around Boston (on the street...I haven't taken them but I lived w/ a dealer at college. Rich, entitled white kids ALWAYS deal.).
Kids aren't as dumb as you're lead to believe. They're opportunistic entrepreneurs. If a 15 year old finds OCs he probably isn't going to give them away: he's going to keep them for himself or sell them. Ditto for Adderall and Ritalin. So, if these parties DO happen, you can bet your ass there's an entrance fee. No kid is gonna throw in expensive shit in exchange for Motrin.
For $80 you could by a 1/4 of Outdoor (e.g good pot) or enough beer to keep you shitfaced for days. Which leads me to my conclusion: high school kids (unless they're uber depressed/suicidal) don't want to just pass out. They want to lose their inhibitions, hook up with someone, play Beirut (aka beer pong), dance, whatever...not go fall asleep in a big pile (at least not until they've thrown back one and a half 6-packs).
Gretchen at March 27, 2008 7:48 AM
I'd see the same kind of kid doing this as might play Russian Roulette. As in, very improbable, but possible. It happening once, or even being imagined as possible is enough to those who thrive (due to ratings or attention) on exaggerating the possibility of such things with the battle cry of "SAVE THE CHILDREN!!!"
Groups like that prefer to think of the children as innocent little lambs - helpless in the face of porn, drugs, violence - and during my youth - Dungeons & Dragons (i.e. "Satan Worship"). Much easier to do that rather than take a good look at each kid and realize that it's should be addressed on a case-by-case basis. And that some kids are much more clever, less innocent, and cynical bastards that their parents could imagine.
Jamie at March 27, 2008 8:01 AM
I agree with Shafer, this sounds like bullshit to me. Kid's are not so stupid as to waste good drugs in this manner. But then again, how many kids have tried to get high off cat urine since last night's episode of South Park? (I hope that's a rhetorical question.)
Sterling at March 27, 2008 9:13 AM
the irritating thing in all this is that it dilutes and misses the point of the message. Teens ARE messing with prescriptions... but the horror stories just help some people deny what is happening... my little angel wouldn't do that. Prolly not, but if you notice that you are short some adderallXR pills, etc. somebody may be helping you with that.
Also? party horror stories don't help anyone figure out how to convince the Invicable Teenager [tm] that they can die from such things, EVEN AFTER a classmate has done that. This is true for drinking as well. The police recently got a kid on a DUI while driving home from the funeral of a classmate who had died from DUI.
the point of the matter isn't if the kids are smart, it's do they know what to do with that or not? Dunno what the answer is there... I was the sober kid that kept everyone else out of trouble in HS...
SwissArmyD at March 27, 2008 11:34 AM
"the point of the matter isn't if the kids are smart"
Agree SwissArmyD, the point is if the PARENTS are smart enough to realize that kids don't need (non-existent) pharm parties to get high. They can do that right there at home, with your pills or cleaning products - at no expense to them!
Unfortunately, I wasn't the sober kid. I went to rehab at the ripe young age of 12. Even that young however, I was not dumb enough to try anything first, or to part with my more expensive drugs on a chance that I may get something of less potency. I was also devious, conniving and manipulative.
I commend Mr. Schafer for debunking this particular fallacy. It is so important for parents to be educated. From what I learned the year I spent in rehab, it wasn't the kids that were dumb, it was the parents. Not dumb, as in lacking a college degree, but naive when it came to drugs. These mass media news sources have parents worried about made up parties, when they should be focusing on putting pad-locks on their cabinets.
dena at March 27, 2008 12:09 PM
Dammit! I'm still trying to overcome my fear and loathing of reefer madness. Now this?
I keep looking for 60's refugees who burned their hands by holding them in the stove's burner while they were on acid because the fire looked like a flower, man .... No, really!
Jay R at March 27, 2008 1:08 PM
Only the idiots are trying to get high on cat urine Sterling.
Randy clearly states near the end of the episode you never really get to see her breasts anyway.
lujlp at March 27, 2008 2:06 PM
In fact it is happening, pharma parties and some kids have died. Kids also bring prescription drugs to school and share them with their friends. They bring them from home Sad but true.
nathan harris at March 27, 2008 4:19 PM
Really, Nathan?
Got any news reports of these parties?
Evidence?
Are you saying that kids take handfuls of drugs without knowing whether they're getting Benadryl, Ritalin, OxyContin or aspirin? I mean, how idiotic on the face of it.
Amy Alkon at March 27, 2008 5:21 PM
I for one am not taking any chances; I'm hiding the Aciphex.
mick at March 27, 2008 5:39 PM
The thing about this is that if you actually find a few teenagers who'll reach into a salad bowl of medications and swallow whatever they find, the worrywarts will feel fulfilled. But it won't prove anything! Those teenagers were so fucked up that their lives were going to turn to shit anyway. What would happen if you put a person like that behind the wheel of a car? Or made them responsible for an elderly person with Alzheimers? Or put them in charge of aircraft maintenance?
This is kind of the same response I feel towards the next blog post, where Bierkenen asks:
> if this same guy saw a hot dog
> shop in a gay district called
> Long Dogs
There are gays who would loudly cluck about this even if it seemed to be pandering to their own team. But that doesn't mean anything either. In every hour of every day in every time zone, there are many, many kitchens cooking food that you shouldn't eat. If a busty neon woman on a flying neon burger is your cue to head for another restaurant, more power to you. But even the vegetarians won't be impressed with your sensitivity.
There's a certain class of people who need to be constantly, electrically shocked with the power of of a dismal truth; Life is a constantly threatening condition, and some people just aren't up to it. You can read this between the lines of a critique like Shafer's.
Crid at March 28, 2008 12:56 AM
How about the other urban myth, the rainbow parties? I always thought that was total bullshit, so maybe someone could actually prove they existed?
Chrissy at March 29, 2008 7:23 AM
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