E-cigarettes are becoming known as "trippy sticks" due to their popularity as marijuana smoking devices, and, in a particularly scary trend, teens are risking alcohol poisoning by vaporizing and inhaling booze. Want to learn more? Read on.

1. Malibu Beach Recovery Center
Addiction Recovery Digest
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Volume I, Number 5 – December 1, 2013
“Dangerous Trends: Trippy Sticks, and Teens Smoking Alcohol”
www.MalibuBeachRecoveryBlog.com

2. Dangerous Trends: Trippy Sticks, and Teens Smoking Alcohol
MBRC counselor Craig Sadler says, ‚It's hard for the treatment profession to keep up with emerging drug-using
technology. ‘Trippy Sticks’ and other E-Cig products [are being used] for marijuana, hash, and so forth. Some are designed
to look like ink pens.‛
If at times Sadler feels overwhelmed about staying up to date on the current trends in drug use -- or technology for drug
use, what are parents (and others, besides Sadler, in the addiction and recovery community) to do? Here’s the press
release on trippy sticks, courtesy of Sadler (and at the risk of sounding promotional, it’s with the help of dedicated
counselors like him who do stay on top of the field that people recover).
The release describes these e-cigarettes as portable Hash oil vaporizers – privacy pens that camouflage what they’re being
used for. (No odor, right?) And if the publicist is to be believed, they’re taking Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle, San
Diego, Newark, NYC, Boston, Miami, and Phoenix by storm. They’re also supposed to be healthier because they don’t
burn ‚THC-Concentrated ‘OG’ Hash oil.‛ I’d give you the website URL, but I don’t want to help promote them. Rappers
are doing that, in several songs.
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3. Dangerous Trends: Trippy Sticks, and Teens Smoking Alcohol
The marketer says that they’ll become even more popular as more medical marijuana is approved in more
states. I’ve said before that medical marijuana definitely has a place in many cases, but it’s an area rife for
abuse, too. I once spoke to an addiction specialist who knew a man whose knees hurt terribly every time he
skied. It was enough to get him a prescription for medical marijuana.
Click here for the Urban Dictionary listing for trippy sticks:
This post may seem like something right out of fiction to some people. In fact, it almost does to me, and I’m
writing it.
Teens Smoking Alcohol
Another dangerous ‚vaping‛ trend involves kids inhaling alcohol, according to the Today show. They can
find out about it in YouTube videos, like the one where a kid pours some liquor into a plastic bottle, pumps
air into the bottle, and sucks out the fumes. When kids hear the myth that they can lose weight this way, it
just sounds ideal, right?
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4. Dangerous Trends: Trippy Sticks, and Teens Smoking Alcohol
Doctors are warning the public about it because it sends pure alcohol into a person’s brain – extremely
dangerous. There’s another myth circulating that since you’re not actually drinking, you’re not doing
anything illegal, like underage drinking. And here’s another problem, according to the writeup on the
website:
If a kid ends up in the ER, testing will turn up alcohol poisoning, but not whether he or she drank it or
inhaled it (so no one knows how many kids are doing this). But at least ER doctors are aware and know to
look for the practice.
And about my earlier question, what are parents to do? As experts tell you, educate yourself. Spend the time
to stay up on the latest trends among kids, and talk to your kids about what you find.
This post was originally published on the Malibu Beach Recovery Center blog.
www.MalibuBeachRecoveryBlog.com