High school students from several Breton establishments were recently hospitalized after using an electronic cigarette “lent” by an acquaintance. A story that is reminiscent of that of the “Buddha blues”, a year ago, in the Brest region.
A high school student from Pontivy was hospitalized on Thursday after vaping with an electronic cigarette “lent” by an acquaintance and which probably contained a trafficked substance, reports The Telegram. According to the student’s mother, her son “was in a daze” and had not regained his senses 24 hours after the incident.
The hospital establishment and the headmaster of the establishment conducted the investigation and discovered that several other similar cases had recently been noted in the region, in Loudéac and Guingamp in particular.
A dangerous remake
A story that is reminiscent of the collective intoxication with “Buddha blues” that occurred a year ago in the Brest region. At the time, 4 young people from Brest were suspected of selling vials of “Buddha blues”, a synthetic derivative of vaping cannabis hyper-concentrated in THC with devastating effects, in schools.
Sold as an e-liquid for high electronic cigarettes, the “Buddha blues” was composed of synthetic cannabis whose effect would be equivalent to a 95% concentration of THC (or tetrahydrocannabidiol), the psychoactive principle of cannabis. At this dose, this compound would have a truly hallucinatory effect.
Accessible on the Darknet
Presented in the form of small turquoise blue vials, the “Buddha blues” was bought very simply, and for only a few tens of euros, on the “Darknet”, the hidden Internet where everything is bought and everything is sold.
The vials of blue e-liquid had been seized to be appraised. They contained a synthetic derivative of cannabis, as the police have already seized in France, with a very powerful activity: equivalent to 95% THC. At this concentration, these products have a psycho-hallucinatory activity, far from joyful relaxation.
A hallucinatory product
After a relaxation phase, the “rise” is very brutal with paralysis, tachycardia, loss of bearings, hallucinations, crisis of paranoia, dementia… some students, still minors, had to be hospitalized at the end of 2017.
Sold as an e-liquid that makes you high, the “Buddha blues” is very powerful and causes a total high in teenagers. And health authorities are somewhat overwhelmed by the speed at which new molecules become available: they are often unknown to toxicology services as soon as the old ones are correctly identified.
An alert from the Academy of Medicine
In recent years the phenomenon has grown to such an extent that the Academy of Medicine has decided to sound the alarm in 2018.
One in two young French people who die in a road accident have consumed cannabis, or one of its derivatives, and the consumption of this substance is often associated with mental disorders, such as schizophrenia. A concern based on the fact that many young people start using cannabis from the age of 12.
.
