By Pascal Oparada
Teenagers as young as 14 are boiling used sanitary pads in Indonesia to get high, Strait Times reports.
The bizarre new craze has reportedly gripped youths looking for a cheap and legal way to get high.
The country’s drug control agency, Indonesian National Drug Agency (BNN), said the chemicals in the sanitary pads give those who drink the concoction a feeling of “flying” and hallucinations.
Young people are also boiling nappies – some dirty – in the same process, the BNN added.
“The used pads they took from the trash were put in boiling water. After it cooled down, they drank it together,” said Senior Commander Suprinarto, head of the BNN in Central Java.
Police on the island have in recent weeks arrested teenagers said to be high from the “sanitary pad formula”, Strait Times says.
It’s believed users boil the sanitary pas for around one hour, then cool the resultant liquid before drinking it to get high.
The beverage is understood to be “bitter” but is often consumed three times a day by users.
The Indonesian Ministry of Health is investigating.
This is reminiscent of the codeine addiction in Nigeria, where people, mostly teenagers mix codeine syrup with Cocoa Cola to get high.
Codeine and Tramadol addictions have ravaged parts of Africa with staff of manufacturing companies complicit in the illicit trade.
It took BBC documentary to expose the epidemic and bring the malaise to national consciousness. It prompted the Nigerian government to ban the production of codeine in the country.