I'm shocked by the recent surge of teens broadcasting their dangerous behaviors on YouTube. I was listening to the radio the other morning and they were talking about teens posting videos of themselves and their friends doing drugs. I performed some light research on-line, and apparently "trip videos" are a new pastime for youths.
Out of curiosity, I went to YouTube and typed "trip video" and my search granted a list of videos about acid trips. I wondered if I could find something that included the preparation or actual ingestion of a drug and I came across several videos about salvia trips. For those of you who don't know, salvia is a legally sold hallucinogen that creates a momentary high (no longer than a couple minutes) when smoked. I found a video of a group of guys, who I would guess are in their late teens, watching their friend trip on salvia. While salvia is not a dangerous drug, I find it strange that people would want to document their experimentation with the drug and post it on YouTube. I have heard of similar videos posted about inhalants.
This realization about YouTube content is fairly timely considering we watched the documentary about the Internet generation. It's just insane that teens want to share their drug trips and fights on YouTube.
Go here to view the salvia video. http://youtube.com/watch?v=jJXb7QFcK0M
I think that is very strange that people are posting videos of themselves doing drugs on youtube. In today's society, I think that people haven't even considered to tell teenagers that other drugs are bad. All we hear about is don't smoke pot it will ruin your brain cells. What about the other drugs out there that are more dangerous? You don't see any psa on your tv about don't snort cocaine. A drug that I remember that was popular in my high school and through out my city was a drug called "cheese." What it is heroin combined with crumbled tyenol pm. People would either snort it or shot it up. Now, this drug has been getting noticed in the media and I've seen a psa about this drug. However, when I went to KU and talked about it in my American Studies class, no one had any clue what I was talking about and they thought I was making it up.
The best thing that can be done to prevent these teens experimenting with all sorts of drugs is tell them about all of the drugs and what are the consequences of the taking these drugs. I know that you can't influence someone from not taking it, but you can at least let them know what it will do to them.