by David Emery

Message from a reader, August 23, 1998:

I'd like to report another sighting of the Blue Star legend. On 21-Aug-98, in Brooklyn NY, I saw a flyer taped to a telephone pole on the letterhead of the Sanitation Workers Union, and signed by someone purporting to be the president of that union. It was pretty much the classic Blue Star story, though the confirmation this time was from someone at a hospital in Danbury, Connecticut, and written at the bottom, in the same hand as the signature, was a request 'please don't tear this down, parents need to be warned', or some such wording.

Message from a reader, September 21, 1998:

I heard about an email going around that warns parents about tattoo decals that are popular with kids (too young to get the real thing). These decals are alleged to contain LSD capable of sending the unsuspecting user on the trip of a lifetime. Any truth to this, or have we another legend???

Currently circulating chain letter, October 1998:

Press release from Danbury Hospital, Connecticut, June 1998:

"BLUE STAR TATTOO" IS A HOAX

DANBURY, CT – June 11, 1998 – Since mid-1992, a FALSE memo has circulated bearing Danbury Hospital’s name warning of a drug-laced "blue star tattoo" being sold to school children. While the memo is UNTRUE, it has generated thousands of telephone calls from communities throughout the U.S. and beyond.

The memo – typically titled with "Warning to Parents" – has been sent (often without anyone questioning its validity) via fax, Internet and flyers by parents, school officials and law enforcement agencies. Danbury Hospital has had no involvement in the distribution of the memo, which has traveled across cyberspace and generated thousands of phone calls inquiring about its genuineness.

According to Hospital officials, the memo was posted there in 1992 and mistakenly attributed to the institution ever since. As today’s on-line technology easily allows people to share this information with others, the issue surfaces from time to time as new information.

IF YOU SEE OR RECEIVE THIS MEMO,
PLEASE DO NOT PASS ON THE INFORMATION.
IT IS SIMPLY UNTRUE.

History of the 'Blue Star' LSD tattoo

Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand first addressed rumors about a co-called "Mickey Mouse Acid" in his 1984 book "The Choking Doberman."  He called it "the most insidious urban drug legend" because it implied, as does the present variant, that drug dealers purposely decorate their wares with cartoon images to make them attractive to children.

According to mid-'80s versions, which typically took the form of photocopied flyers, "Mickey Mouse Acid (LSD) has been circulated widely throughout some parts of New England as a part of or in the form of a 'sticker' or label. It may be available to school age children. ...All Disney cartoon characters have been used in the distribution of this LSD."

Brunvand also cited a press clipping from 1982 which described a "children's 'tatoo' [sic] which may contain LSD." He postulated that the notion of LSD-laced tattoos may have originated in a 1980 police memorandum about colorful sheets of "blotter acid," which warned: "Children may be susceptible to this type of cartoon stamp believing it a tattoo transfer."

Dave Gross, author of the Blue Star LSD FAQ, concurs. All it took from there, he writes, was a church group copying the hazily-understood information into an anti-drug flyer and "the legend was on a roll." By 1987 the warning had mutated into more or less its current form, with references to strychnine, "Blue Star" (a trademark), and illustrations of butterflies, clowns, and cartoon characters from Disney and elsewhere.

As noted above, the flyer purporting to originate from Danbury Hospital first surfaced in 1992. Since that time it has spread in photocopied form, by fax, and by email all over the world.

Both Brunvand and Gross, who have tracked the legend for years, maintain there have been no documented cases of children mistaking blotter acid for "stamps" or "tattoo transfers" and accidentally receiving a dose of LSD. The media, which all too often confuse folklore with fact, have sometimes covered the legend accurately, sometimes not. See Gross's well-stocked page of media coverage for examples.

Some thoughts

How to explain the longevity of the legend and its occasional surges in popularity? Well, for starters, there are no horror stories more compelling than those involving children. Scarelore about drugs and drug dealers may be inherently less gripping, but cast children as the innocent victims of same and voila, you've got narratives that will stand the test of time. Consider the legend of drug smugglers using the corpses of children to transport cocaine across the U.S. border, which has been around even longer than rumors of LSD tattoos (and which also has recently undergone a revival in popularity).

To whatever extent new eruptions of these legends are cyclical, perhaps they correlate with changes in cultural attitudes toward drugs. Following the excesses of the '70s there was a backlash against drug use during the '80s, which is when both of these stories made their first public appearance. The "Just say no" attitude of the Reagan era gave way to a renewed curiosity about drugs among young people in the early '90s, as a result of which we may now be experiencing the beginnings of a another backlash.

I've often pointed out in these pages that popular legends tend to symbolize our collective fears – especially those for which there aren't any obvious or easy remedies. The stories themselves may not be corroborated in real life, but the fears they represent sometimes are. Just last month (September 1998), CNN ran a frightening news story about some fourth-graders who fell ill after consuming LSD which had been injected into a vial of commercial breath freshener. According to police, one of the children had found the contaminated product on her way to school and innocently shared it with her classmates.

Are children really in danger of getting dosed with LSD through drug-laced tattoos? No. Are they endangered by the careless drug use of the adults around them? Clearly, they can be. This is another example of how a false story can paint a true picture of the things we most fear.

Sources and further reading:

The 'Blue Star' LSD Tattoo Page
By Dave Gross, the most complete resource available

Blue Star Acid
Variants of the legend and lively commentary from the UL Reference Pages