From: bx461@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Leo J. Mauler)
Subject: Re: Paper prints misleading article about "drug tattoos"
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 92 21:49:06 GMT


lagnaf@camelot.bradley.edu (Jeremy Styninger), writes:
>Here is an example of a story that twists the facts to try and
>generate a little hysteria.....
>
>From the August 16, 1992, Peoria Journal Star.  
>
>_Police say drug-laced tattoos may prey on children_
>by Anthony Smith
>
>    Peoria-area police departments are issuing warnings
>about tattoos laced with drugs and seemingly aimed at young
>children.
>    Although there have been no reported instances of a
>child using the tattoos in Peoria - nor have any turned up
>in a drug raid - Peoria Sgt. Steve Esslinger, with the vice
>and narcotics division, said last week that the tattoos have
>been around for a long time and are being sold.
>    "They are out there.  Some of the undercover guys are
>buying them,"  Esslinger said.
>    The tattoos, which usually are in the form of a blue
>star or popular cartoon characters, come on a small sheet of
>paper and are the size of pencil erasers.  They normally are
>soaked with LSD, a hallucinatory drug, that can be absorbed
>through the skin, police said.
 
Oh, NO!  "Return Of The Blue Star Tattoo Acid URBAN MYTH!"
 
Seriously, everyone gets the flyer from the police, or from a 
"concerned citizens group", but either the police didn't 
actually send out the article, or the citizen's group 
doesn't actually exist.  And all the while, hundreds of 
imaginary kids with imaginary $100 a day allowances are buying 
100 "Blue Star" or "Mickey Mouse" or "Unicorn" or "Whatever" 
tattoos a day and getting allegedly addicted to a drug which 
has no physical addictive properties, and people taking it who 
aren't expecting hallucinations will shy away from it (i.e., 
if its a surprise, no psychological addictive potential either).
 
Undoubtedly there was an original case which got blown out of 
proportion (someone hears that Jimi Hendrix supposedly 
absorbed it through his headband, they get the idea that 
tattoos could transfer it, and the rumors begin again), but no 
one has found any real evidence of the type of "Blue Star 
Tattoo Acid", like the non-existence of snuff films.

This rumor is totally wrong for a number of reasons:

[1]  LSD cannot be absorbed through the skin without something 
     helping it absorb, like DMSO, and the amount of acid that 
     could fit on a dot the sixe of a pencil eraser, that is 
     ALREADY filled with enough DMSO to push something through 
     the skin, is so negligible that you'd need a few hundred 
     tattoos--well beyond the allowances of most young 
     children--to have any effect whatsoever.
 
[2]  Inevitably, we have no proof that the "Blue Star Acid" 
     exists, save the word of the people or the police who 
     printed the flyer, as paragraph 2 of the article clearly 
     shows.  The police have every reason to wish to spread 
     drug hysteria, since this will make more people willing 
     to give up their rights for more police powers to destroy 
     the influences of drugs on their children.
 
[3]  This rumor appears in hundreds of different places all 
     around the country, and each time the "Blue Star Acid" 
     appeared in that area of the country FIRST, and has been 
     there for quite some time even though no one but 
     "undercover officers" have ever seen it.
 
Blue Star Acid is a MYTH!  It has never existed in the form 
everyone claims it is in, and even if someone creates some to 
prove the mythmongers wrong, it can't have the effects 
everyone ascribes to it because there isn't enough room on a 
"pencil-eraser size" tattoo to store enough LSD to trip on AND 
enough DMSO to push the LSD through the skin.
-- 
Never do this at home.  Look how easily it killed this sig.
/\  ___/\  ___/\  _____________________________________________
  \/     \/     \/  bx461@cleveland.freenet.edu (Leo J. Mauler)
DISCLAIMER: Everything I say is false, including this sentence.
Newsgroups: alt.drugs,misc.legal,talk.politics.drugs