Dear Kid,

I don’t understand people taking drugs whose main effect seems to be inducing vomiting and trying to convince people to kill them. Maybe I’m just behind the times.

Don't Be Stupid DearKidLoveMom.comThere was an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer last week about just such an episode. The hallucinating man (who was all of 18 years old) had been smoking (get this) a strawberry air freshener “most of the day.”

Who wakes up in the morning and says, “Gee, I think I’ll smoke an air freshener today?” How do people come up with this stuff?

There is a new rule that bans the possession or sale of PB22 and 5F-PB22. Those are the chemical compounds our genius was smoking, and they are often sprayed on plants to mimic the high of marijuana. There are also laws banning the use of synthetic drugs that mimic the effects of marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine. This is a good thing.

But just as soon as laws, rules, regulations, and mothers go to work, chemists start tweaking formulas to skirt the law. Brilliant (please note the sarcasm font).

To be clear, vomiting and hallucinating are not nearly as bad as certain death from krokodil, but they are certainly not good. And no one knows what they are doing to brain cells, or what they might cause people to do (begging police to kill you falls under the “not good” category, imho).

A reminder to use your chemistry skills for good.

Love, Mom