Before we get started let me just say I am not mocking the death of a thirteen year old boy here. I would just like to make that perfectly clear right away. I don’t know how many times just this week I’ve been wrongfully accused of celebrating teen deaths and I’m sick of it. It is irresponsible and hurtful to my loyal fan base of thirteen year old boys. I would never wish ill on any of their cherubic little faces. Now, with that little bit of house keeping out of the way.
A thirteen year old Pittsburgh boy was murdered by his own stupidity and his parents’ neglect.
The headline reads: “Teen dies after smoking synthetic pot”. At first glance, that’s horrible. The death of a teen is rarely hysterical and that he was killed by some sort of Franken-dope created in a lab specifically to murder thirteen year olds with no parental supervision just makes it all the more tragic. The only problem with this headline is that it’s entirely false.
The subhead sheds slightly more light on the what might be slightly closer to the truth: “13-year-old boy sustained chemical burns to his lungs after smoking from plastic candy dispenser”. Ah, well, okay, now we’re getting somewhere slightly less sensational aren’t we?
Then as we get into the poorly written body of the “story” we discover: “The boy smoked the fake marijuana out of a plastic candy dispenser and suffered chemical burns to both lungs. He was put on a respirator in June and had a double lung transplant in September. The boy’s mother says anti-rejection drugs he’s taken since the transplants weakened his immune system and made him unable to fight off a recent infection.”
So, now we have slightly more information here. Still not much in the way of reporting, but at the very least it is more information. With these new tid bits, we can slightly modify the sensational headline to read “Teen who inhaled burning plastic dies of infection following double lung transplant”.
I actually did some research on this one, something I often, plainly refuse to do, and found another article about this kid. The second article goes into a little more detail, saying that the boy “injured his lungs in August after smoking a substance known as K2.” mentioning no where in THIS story that he smoked it through the thin flimsy plastic neck slot of Batman villain Two Face (allegedly) and that “Shortly after smoking the drug, the teen developed nausea, a full body rash, headaches and high fever. His father said the substance caused a chemical burn in his son’s lungs.”
All of this forced me to do further research, which only served to anger up my blood some more. In looking up the side effects or potential risks of “synthetic marijuana” I found that the products, “often sold as “herbal incense” and smoked like traditional marijuana, can produce seizures, hallucinations, tremors, paranoia, convulsions, high blood pressure and rapid heart rate.” And while very few of these are good side effects, exactly none of them are what dad said happened to his boy.
Then, after this parentally neglected 13 year old got sick from inhaling a PEZ dispenser, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett signed a bill outlawing synthetic marijuanas.
All of this leaves me with a lot of “Why?”s. Why does everyone believe that baby-juana did something specifically to this kid that it’s never done to anyone else ever. Why, when this child’s actual cause of death was hospital infectionitis brought on by the total removal and replacement of his entire respiratory system in a building literally slopping over with infectiousness, is every news source saying that bullshit fake weed put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger now he’s dead? Why are “news” people just allowed to assign blame to a substance with no actual proof and get away with it. Saying “Teen dies after smoking synthetic pot” in relation to this story is only slightly more crazy than if, say, I were to put on a pair of my favorite asbestos gloves, massage the mucusy orifice of your choice, and several months later you were to die of mecca pneumonia due to your body rejecting your new radio controlled bionic sphincter valve and the headline reading “Blog reader dies after loving, tender, attentive butt hole fingering”.
Now, don’t get me wrong, none of this is meant to be in defense of synthetic marijuana or a condemnation of robotic poopers. I personally think these “K-2” and “Spice” and what have you are cute and dumb and mostly harmless as long as you ask your parent’s permission before sucking it through a fiery Lego. What bothers me is the lazy, irresponsible nature of this reporting and how nobody will call these people out on their bullshit. And please know, if it does in fact turn out that this kid’s death was caused specifically and solely by the proper, appropriate implementation of this legal product, then I’m just a bigger asshole than most give me credit for and I’m sorry for ever questioning the validity of this third hand hearsay being passed off as investigative journalism. But if I’m not: if I’m right… Well, we’ll never hear about it. Because first people would have to admit that they’re wrong, which they won’t. And death not being the result of evil future drugs sent back through time to kill our children just doesn’t fit the narrative being built by those that don’t like this product for what ever reason. But just because something’s legal, doesn’t mean it’s good for you either, I mean, take cigarettes or having children that you have no intention of properly raising, but just because you don’t like a thing, doesn’t mean it murdered somebody.
God damn, this has been a week. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go take a nap, because in my dreams I’m an 8 time gold medal Olympic vampire puncher with the uncanny psychic ability to sense when and where lesbian sex is transpiring and a magical doorway that can take me there. Then I’m gonna wake up Monday hoping that most of the sharp objects in the apartment are still up too high for me to reach them…
See you then, if any of us make it there without being killed by something whose fault it isn’t.
you are an idiot
Thank you Anonymous no one for your well thought out review of my intelligence.
Or, wait, were you talking to the dead child who murdered his lungs by inhaling melted plastic? Because I think that’s kind of mean. He’s dead, he doesn’t need you piling on Mystery Fellah.
Listen, I think you should just go, that kind of mean spirited, misplaced anger is just not welcome in a happy place such as this.
Come back when you’re ready to learn and laugh and love again. Until then I say good day sir or ma’am.