Strawberry Meth
Netlore Archive: Email fliers warn of a new, candy-flavored form of methamphetamine targeted at young people called 'strawberry meth' or 'Strawberry Quick meth'
Description: Email fliers
Circulating since: March 2007
Status: Partly true / Overblown
Email example contributed by Madelynn, 30 April 2007:
| Subject: Strawberry Meth I have been alerted by one of our EMT's for our volunteer fire department that they have received emails from emergency responder organizations to be on the lookout for a new form of Crystalized Meth that is targeted at children and to be aware of this new form if called to an emergency involving a child that may have symptoms of drug induction or overdose. They are calling this new form of meth "Strawberry Quick" and it looks like the "Pop Rocks" candy that sizzle in your mouth. In it's current form, it is dark pink in color and has a strawberry scent to it. Please advise your children and their friends and other students not to accept candy from strangers as this is obviously an attempt to seduce children into drug use. They also need to be cautious in accepting candy from even friends that may have received it from someone else, thinking it is just candy. I don't want this email to scare anyone, but as a parent, coach, volunteer firefighter and friend, I thought it would be best to share this with you, so you can once again talk to your children about the effects of drugs and how easy it could be to take drugs without knowing it, until it is too late. I worry, just as each of you do about kids and drugs and all the problems our kids today are faced with. So please talk with your children about this newest threat to get children addicted to drugs! http://www.ky3.com/news/6626012.html Click above for a news article about this from just across the state line in Missouri.What typically is not in this part of the country is now not too far from us here in Northwest Arkansas. Take care, God Bless and I've said a prayer that none of our kids will ever be faced with taking or being addicted to drugs! |
Email example contributed by Bill C., 1 May 2007:
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Subject: Strawberry Meth FYI - New drug starting to turn up in Kansas. This stuff is starting to turn up in Kansas. I thought it may be a good idea to put out an email so that those with children can remind them not to take unpackaged candy from anyone in school and of course, those they don't know. Apparently, this meth is sweet and candy like, similar to pop rock crystals. The letter shows a picture of what is being recovered by agencies. 
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Email example contributed by Linda S., 6 June 2007:
| Fw: CHILDRENS CRYSTAL METH - FYI Really scary. This is so sad!!! Children's Meth Checked this on Snopes and it is true http://www.snopes.com/horrors/drugs/candymeth.asp There is a very scary thing going on in the schools right now that all need to be aware of. There is a type of crystal meth going around that looks like strawberry pop rocks. It smells like strawberry also and it is being handed out to kids in school yards in AR. I'm sure it will make its way around the country if it hasn't already. Kids are ingesting this thinking that it is candy and being rushed off to the E.R. in dire condition. It also comes in chocolate, peanut butter, cola, cherry, grape and orange ~` it looks just like pop rocks. Please instruct your children to not accept candy that looks like this even from a friend and to take any that they may have to a teacher, principal, etc. Please pass this around it could save some family a lot of heartache! That is what they are calling strawberry meth or strawberry quick. Thought you'd want to know. |
Update: A new version of this message tagged "Halloween Warning" began circulating in October 2007.
Comments: In March 2007, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration announced it had received reports of drug traffickers offering candy-flavored methamphetamine for sale in western and midwestern states from California to Minnesota in the form of colorful crystals resembling Pop Rocks. The first such report was issued three months earlier by the Nevada Department of Public Safety after samples of what narcotics agents believed to be strawberry-flavored meth -- nicknamed "Strawberry Quick" -- were confiscated in a drug raid. State officials speculated that illegal drug manufacturers were experimenting with reformulating crystal meth by adding strawberry and other sweet flavorings to make the bitter-tasting, highly addictive stimulant more attractive to potential teenage customers.
DEA: No hard evidence that flavored meth is proliferating
After several months of following up on these reports, however, DEA officials told reporters they "hadn't seen much" in the way of actual seizures of flavored methamphetamine and that the DEA itself had yet to seize any of the stuff at all. As of June 2007, experts were speculating that local drug agencies may have simply confused samples of colored meth -- which is quite common and accounted for by dyes present in the raw ingredients -- for a new, flavored variety of the drug. Jeanne Cox, excecutive director of the Meth Project Foundation, summarized the quandary in a statement to the drug information Website JoinTogether.org: "We are all still trying to figure out what's going on with strawberry meth and if it really exists."
Meanwhile, the waters have been further muddied by reports -- again originating from local drug enforcement agencies -- that drug dealers in California are now marketing new, strawberry- and coconut-flavored varieties of cocaine.
Threat to young children overblown
As in previous warnings about illegal drugs that resemble candy (see drug-laced lollipops and Blue Star LSD tatoos), the suggestion that flavored methamphetamines are targeted at or pose a direct threat to very young children is probably overblown. Sure, it's conceivable that strawberry-colored meth could fall into the hands of a toddler who might mistake it for Pop Rocks and ingest it, but the far greater likelihood is that it will prove captivating -- and therefore dangerous -- to the very age group for which it is intended: teenagers.
New Twist in Illicit Drugs: Fruit Flavor
Sacramento Bee, 26 June 2007Meth Ado About Nothing?
JoinTogether.org, 22 June 2007Strawberry Meth Found Throughout West Coast
KNDO-TV News, 7 May 2007DEA: Flavored Meth Use on the Rise
USA Today, 25 March 2007Methamphetamine
Wikipedia article
Last updated: 10/25/07
