I found a bottle of anbesol and a lighter in my kids coat pocket. He claims he had a sore in his mouth last week, and the lighter was just a show thing, you know, to look cool.:rolleyes: I think he’s full of shit, but I want to check my facts first.
Does anyone know if kids are using anbesol to get high with?
I can’t find anything on the web.
[sub]Druggy here.[/sub]
Nope. Can’t get high off of Anbesol. It can, however, constrict your airway if little Jimmy decides to go bottoms up with the whole bottle. It is essentially an ingestable topical anesthetic. It may contain alcohol but, AFAIK, people have never used it to get high.
It will also make his mouth numb like cocaine does, but I bet your kid probably already knows that. How old is he by the way? I am just wondering because it he might already have that mind mset that says it is “OK” for him to ingest substances to induce a funny feeling. I say “Alert.”, not necessarily red alert, but “Alert.”
I don’t want to make you paranoid, but when I was about 17 and tripping on acid, we thought that ambosol was very cool because it made us feel “weird”. Maybe his mouth really did hurt, but ambosol does nothing by itself to get you high. As for the lighter, who knows, either he’s smoking or he’s a pyro.
You can check for self-mutilation or self-piercings, as it’s sometimes used as a topical anesthetic for those purposes.
On the very bizarre side, if he purchases macademia nuts, you might need to worry. The two are apparently sometimes used to create fake crack for dealing. I have no idea how one would pull this off, but it supposedly happens.
hmmm, im a teenager ive had my share of drugs. You could be surprised what some kids try to do to get high, i try to stay away from kids like this so dont think im one of them. For example, one time i went over to this kids house and he was trying to get high off his asthma inhaler. Then after that he made a crappy little pipe out of aluminum foil and was smoking regular grass. I was like, “YOUR A MORON”. So dont think that all kids know if a drug really will get them high or not. Many will just eat anything with a complex name. Its really sad but its true.
Benzocaine is the active ingredient in Anbesol (and some formulations also contain phenol), and it might make you feel better to know that the only thing that came up on Google when I searched for the phrase “benzocaine abuse” was the following joke page:
http://thediastema.diaryland.com/orajel.html
But if you search for Anbesol abuse you do come up with some pages about teens using Anbesol as a local anesthetic when they’re self-mutilating. Take a look at his arms and legs.
Also, some of the side effects of benzocaine use (excitability, for example) sound like they might appeal to bored kids in the same way that sniffing glue does, but that doesn’t seem to be very common if it happens.
I assume that when people are using Anbesol and macadamia nuts to counterfeit crack, that the macadamia nuts are supposed to look like crack and that you’re supposed to soak them in Anbesol so if a potential customer tastes it, it will make his tongue numb like cocaine. I used to live on a crack alley in L.A. and saw customers tasting the rocks when they bought them. I assume that’s why, but I’ve never tasted the stuff myself.
Ahhh…Anbesol.
I’ve been known to have a habit of chewing on my lips unconsciously, (you know, I just start doing it maybe when I’m reading, and then I realize I’m doing it), and I used to get AWFUL mouth sores from it. My dentist told me to stop, saying I could have some severe tissue damage.
Anyhoo, after a day or so the sores would be excruciatingly painful, and I’d end up not being able to eat a lot, or even talk very well. So, I would use Anbesol. Only thing is, it doesn’t last that long, and I’d go through it like crazy. But I never got high.
This leads me to another question…which I’ll start a new thread on, rather than hijacking this one.
Since everyone has answered the question already, this is just something I feel obligated to ask… Do you have any particular reason to assume your kid is lying, does he have a history of getting in to trouble or something? There’s just something that seems a little weird about seeing Anbesol and automatically thinking “must be using it to get high”.
Is this stuff a compressed spray? (like a deodorant spray) and it has alcohol in it? in that case every teenager knows that flammable aerosol + lighter = flamethrower.
Or maybe he’s just telling the truth about the mouth sore thing.
Of course we’re here to eradicate ignorance, but let’s try to stop short of “giving stupid people ideas.”
Don’t worry too much about the lighter, either.
When I was a kid you had to have a lighter. That didn’t really mean that you smoked anything, it was just the sort of thing that you have to have. There is a thrill to buying somethng you were never allowed to play with. I used mine to set pencils on fire and light candles to keep my hands warm when I ate lunch outside in the winter.
ambesol does make your mouth feel strange. it wouldn’t surprise me if that was why he had it.
on the “strange drugs people do” subject, i know a kid who inhales some sort of furniture duster…how can
doing this seem appealing?
Yeah. He’s 16 and in that asshole, “I know everything” stage that many teenage boys go through. Also, I’m not overly fond of the kids he’s friends with, and I have caught him in a few lies recently as well as caught him doing a few other things wrong. Also, we have an older son who went through this stage too. (not to mention I recall the many things I pulled when I was 16!) I have to admit that I’m surprised no one here bitched at me for snooping in his stuff. I would really have blown my top. Knowing what I know about my kid, my warantless searches are 100% justified.
I didn’t mean to imply anything, I was just curious. I know that with some kids there’s plenty of reason to be suspicious.
First hand experiance states self mutilation and ambesol don’t add up. If the kid is peircing, he would be a total moron to use ambesol on it, it would be more likely to cause an infection. If he’s cutting, esp., using razors, ambesol would make it hurt like a mother.
However, look for things like Cloroseptic, Vicks, Tiger Balm…anything that that causes a prolonged physical sentation of hot, cold or tingling, including cough drops and mints, like Altoids. This is a big thing with kids who are using Extacy [rolls, xtc]. When using xtc, sense of touch is more sentitive and on a good roll everything feels really good. So kids will do a roll and mess around with sensory perception with any of the above named. Taste and sight are often effected the same way, so they’ll play with those senses too. I never experianced anything with my hearing.
You also may be able to note the “crash” once the drug wears off [8-12 hours]. The crash can last for any amount of time, but the usual is 3-7 days. The crash is generally a standard thing, generally an intense emotional down-swing, though my first experiance with xtc didn’t have that effect, it left me on an emotional upswing for several days. It’s a lot like heroin in that people are always “chasing the dragon,” IE, looking to relive the first, usually very good and emotionally intense, high. And, like heroin, you don’t get that high again, it’s more mundane, or in my case, a really, really bad cycle of crashes and platues. The final crash usually leads to feeling sick & headaches [dehydration], lethargy, sensitivty to light, general irritability, depression and problems sleeping. The person may be shaky and a bit paranoid, but at the same time, obviously not “all there.”
As far as the lighter, well, I think incense, smoking and the kid and his friends may even possibly be “branding” each other [lighting the lighter and keeping it lit until the metal part gets hot, then extinguishing the flame and using the metal part to burn themselves]. Depending on the lighter, the brands come out looking like smiley faces or aliens.
As far as what rolls look like, they are small pills ranging in size from an eraser tip on a pencil down to something a little bit smaller than a birth control pill. I’ve seen them in white, pink and tan and they usually come out speckled with brown, black, blue or red flecks, depending on how they’re made and where. They almost always have some sort of symbol on them…butterflies, diamonds, hearts, spades, clubs, smilies…they are usually $20 a roll and people tend to buy 2 or more for a “night”, so keep an eye on your kid’s money.
General concensus on the scene is that xtc is a mellow drug with little side effects, but that’s obviously not the reality. It’s a “happy drug” used for feeling good when dancing or most often for enhancing sexual experiances and though it’s found in most every scene, it’s biggest in the Rave scene.
Sorry I can’t reassure you that’s it’s nothing, but I was a kid not so long ago myself. Xtc is nasty stuff, but hard to give up. Even now I look at what I wrote, and though I haven’t touched the stuff in about a year and a half, I still find myself thinking “Yeah, but it felt soooo good.” Look for a drug councilor at your kid’s school, or better yet, make him go to family counciling after school. I firmly believe every teen benefits from once a week counciling and if you kid’s having issues, it’s a good idea to try it at least.
I just found Orajel under m son’s pillow, as well as benadryl and iceyhot. I find lots of interesting stuff when I change his sheets. Something I found that hasn’t been mentioned on this thread, that I’ve seen, is that it can be used to delay orgasms by desensitization of the skin. This makes more sense to me than using it for a high…especially in my son’s case, by what else I typically find stuffed between his bed and wall. Ugh. The self-mutilation makes sense too though. It just depends on what you know about your kid or what else you find. I’ve found a lighter in my son’s room. He doesn’t smoke, cause I can smell that and alcohol like a bloodhound. He likes to have a lighter…I don’t know. I thought they were cool as a kid and I had one, but never did anything with it except hold it up during a concert.
Note that the OP’s kid is ~37 now (out of curiosity any resolution? is the kid a productive member of society?)
Brian
He is now. He’s the VP for a large distribution company, owns a 750K home. But he didn’t straighten out until his early 20’s and life bitch slapped him a time or two,
First a 250+ post Pit thread, now a 21+ year zombie. Whatever would you people do without me? 
If there was ever an example of a good zombie thread revival, it’s this one!
Congrats to @pkbites - whatever you did, you done good!
While I think we would disagree vociferously on almost everything, I for one am glad you’re here